Family Fun

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This month at the Not Just A Mom Link-up theme is Favorite Family Activities. At first I thought this should be easy, right? But then I began second-guessing every idea I jotted down. Should it be family activities we enjoy NOW? Or that we enjoyed when the kids were younger? What if I include something on a list thinking it was a favorite only for the adult kids to tell me they never liked it that much? (Believe me, it happens! I think a favorite activity of theirs is taking the wind out of my sails.) How many members of the family must approve of an activity to make it a favorite? I promise I'm not a day late sharing this because I was overthinking it, although I certainly DID overthink. I've called a halt to overthinking and decided to just list five that I think have been favorites, and call it good. They're kind of broad categories too.

Music - The first couple of activities I thought of fell into this category. For quite a few years, and up until this past winter, our family has been playing together in some combination in a worship team band. My husband and I have been playing and singing in some form of a worship team almost as long as we've been married. Our kids got dragged along to worship team practices all the time, and our oldest son played drums with us in a youth group worship band during his teens and played in our regular worship band for awhile as well. Then we convinced our daughter to start playing guitar with us when she was a very young teen, and it wasn't long until she was a regular guitarist and singer and really a cornerstone of the team. Our third son started playing drums with us during his teen years as well, and quickly developed his talent. Our second son has been our soundman for years and years. So the family band was the core of our worship team at church for years, and the last couple of years we were able to put together a couple of concert evenings that were so much fun as well. Since we moved away, Kennady took over leadership of the worship team and Landon is still playing drums, and Spencer is still the soundman. Meanwhile our church here was in need of a bassist so my husband has filled that role, and I've been able to play keyboards a couple of times. 

Also a musical activity that our family has enjoyed is going to concerts together. For several years our family vacations included a trip to a Christian music festival. Kingdom Bound was the one we went to most years, but we also tried out Kingsfest and we went to Uprise a few times as well. Despite a generation gap, we mostly liked the same music! We've also gone to other concerts together as a family often, and my daughter and I have gone to concerts together too, since we like a couple of groups that the rest of the family doesn't care for. My daughter and I have also sung in choirs over the years (and in the same one for a couple seasons!) and attend each other's concerts.

Family at Trans Siberian Orchestra 2019

Family at Trans Siberian Orchestra 2018

Me and Kennady - first Pentatonix concert

Kennady and me, with a couple of friends
~Our first Twenty One Pilots concert~

Sports - Hockey is the family sport. We don't all play, of course, but we're all fans and one favorite outing was going to Hershey Bears games. Going to Capitals games was a lot more expensive and logistically challenging, so we didn't do that often. Since my husband plays hockey and helped run a league for years, each one of the kids has done a stint as scorekeeper for the league. We've had a family Stanley Cup playoff pool for years as well.  Baseball is the other sport that has provided family activities for us all to enjoy. The kids all played baseball or softball at some point, so attending their games was a family activity. Attending Frederick Keys games was a favorite, and when Landon graduated high school and got to choose our family vacation―The Summer of Landon―we did a baseball tour, attending games in Baltimore, Washington, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Toronto. Oh, and in Columbus.

one of many Hershey Bears games

Vacation Highlights  - Most families like going on vacation together, so there's nothing unique about that, but I have to include some of the activities that we've liked to do together on vacations or days out. We all like theme parks and the rides, so that added to the appeal of the Kingdom Bound and Kingsfest vacations. To some extent, we all like roller coasters so that's the kind of vacation that appealed to all of us. I can't say that everyone enjoyed hiking every time, but it's something most of us enjoy now. These days my husband and I are getting to do a lot of walking and hiking our oldest son and his family. I think we all enjoy fireworks. I remember visiting lighthouses being sort of a theme on vacations for a few years as well.

Food - Eating out and hosting parties comes to mind as a family activity. My husband and I made it our goal to try barbecue places as often as possible. In fact, we've often joked that I should have had a barbecue review page on my blogs just to keep track of all the places we've eaten and what we thought! For the most part, the kids have been in on this family activity as well. Since we all like eating out, special events call for planning which restaurant we'll try and we tend to report to each other about places we eat that we think the others would enjoy. Planning restaurant stops has been an integral part of vacation planning a few times!  We also loved having people over for dinner, and the kids' friends were regulars at our place for meals a lot during the teen years. Super Bowl, New Years, Canadian Thanksgiving, Memorial Day, grad parties, and more . . . all occasions to invite guests and make a ton of food―often including barbecue or grilling.

Family Games - To be fair, my husband doesn't care much for board games, so he seldom participated in those, but he's a good sport and joined us from time to time. Some of us love board games and look forward to chances to play our favorites. My parents introduced us to dominoes years ago and that was something that the kids associated with visits from Gramma and Papa. But waiting until Gramma and Papa's next visit was usually too long, so dominoes tournaments happened at other times as well. When Kennady and Dan visited us last month, one of the things they wanted to make sure we did was play Scrabble, and I was definitely down for that! When our granddaughter brings over a game to play with Nonny and Poppy, we make time to play! The kids all enjoy video games and escape rooms and they play those kinds of games together regularly. 

This post will be linked up with the Not Just A Mom Link-up hosted by Adrienne, Dara, Jen, Joanne, Lauren, and Sarah.

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