Under-Scheduled and it Feels So Right

Our family made a big decision this year to move to Colorado from Tennessee.  When you make a drastic move like this, it can be overwhelming, but it can also be a unique opportunity to restructure you life.  One if the things we wanted when we moved was for our lives to be less hectic. For lack of a better term, we wanted to be under-scheduled.  Here are a few ways we've attempted to do this and the results thus far:

We eliminated our commute

These are in no particular order, but I'm sure I listed this one first because it's had an enormous impact on our quality of life.  Tim's commute back in TN was 35 miles one way, and that often translated to about 1 hour each way.  Think about it this way; that's 10 hours a week and 40 hours a month.  That's like a part time job you don't get paid for!  He definitely made the most of it by listening to a lot of audio books, and it forced him to be very productive, but he was sick of it!  If left him with no time with family in the AM and only about an hour and half at night.  Then he had about 1 hour of free time before he had to go to sleep and do it all over again.  There is more to life than that!  Now he has about 2 mile commute to work.  It means he can get up a little before 6 AM (not crazy early), hit the gym, come home and shower and have breakfast with us before work.  It means he can get home before the sun goes down and walk the kids ride their bike.  It means he's not drop dead tired all the time. Priceless.

 The kiddos enjoying a bike/scooter ride in the late afternoon

Big C practicing peddling

We cut down on the kids activities

Let me preface this by saying that I'm never here to judge or shame other parents into thinking what they are doing is wrong.  Every family has their own unique needs.  For us, I felt like we were over-scheduled in the area of kids activities.  We were to the point back in TN where we had something going on at least 3 to 4 nights a week.  We had dance and gymnastics, we often participated in church series at night during the week, I was room mom at school,  Caleb had preschool...the list goes on. And believe it or not the amount of stuff our kids were doing was light compared to some other families.  Again, not here to shame; just mentioning this because I felt constant pressure to have my kids in even more activites.  So when we moved, we completely re-evaluated all of that.  I decided that no matter how hard it was, I was not going to care what anyone thought.  Savannah does a Crossfit kids class (which she LOVES) while I work out...it's a win, win!   She loves getting to work out like Mommy and have fun with her friends.  She just joined Girls Scouts and...wait for it...their troop meets ONCE A MONTH!  Can I get an AMEN!?  She is excited to start earning "petals" and selling girl scout cookies.  Caleb will start a 6 week T-ball program at our local Y this spring which meets once a week.  We also didn't enroll him in preschool right away.  For one thing the preschools up here are significantly more expensive than down south, and for another, it just wasn't a necessity.  That meant that I had to be a little more intentional about teaching him at home.   I'm not a Pinterest queen nor do a have much patience so I was a little intimidated about this at first.  However, through a friend, I found a FREE, easy preschool home school program, and shockingly, we've had so much fun together completing our little assignments each day.  As a result of these changes, we don't feel rushed constantly to get from one place to the next.  The kids have more time to use their imaginations, play, and just be kids.  There seems to be more harmony in the house.   Here are a few shots of some of the kiddos enjoying their time and doing the "extras."

 Caleb, after just completing a project; so proud!

Savannah, doing some broad jumps at Crossfit Kids

 Girl Scout cookies for sale!

We cut down on obligations 

Until we moved,  I didn't have a good grasp of how much our our time was spent fulfilling obligations.  Some obligations in some situations may be necessary.  However we were to the point where we were going to birthday parties for kids we didn't really know.  We were saying yes to dinner with family when we should've just said. "we just need to rest."  We fulfilling church obligations...then if we didn't we were feeling guilty.  I was volunteering with something school related and then feeling guilty if I ever said no.  We wanted to stop it with the obligations and the guilt. We wanted to spend our free time being intentional and either resting more and/or doing things we enjoy. So far it's been a success.  I'll admit, I think it's been easier to do this because we are starting fresh and have no family here.  But it seems like every weekend I say, "that was the best weekend ever!" and really mean it.  Of course we miss family dinners and date nights with close friends, but I think we are setting some good ground work and establishing some good habits and ground rules in this area.  Here are a few snap shots of some of our recent weekend activities.

Hiking Chataqua Trail

Finding "Ice Crystals"

Picnic in the mountains

Chataqua Trails

Thanks to Aunt Kelly and Uncle Jeremy, we got to go to a Hockey Game

Sometimes we just hang at Pirate Park by our house

Talking a walk after an 8 inch snowfall.  We love to sled with the kids when it snows.

Do you want to build a snowman?

The 8 inch snow was last weekend, and this photo was taken this weekend.  Yes folks, those are short sleeves.  If you must ask, it was 73 degrees.  Welcome to Colorado.

We enjoyed hanging out with Andrea and Megan and seeing the Denver Zoo for the first time.

We ate at the best food truck of all time (Quiero Arepas) and enjoyed some brewskis at a open air brewery nearby.  There was even an adorable puppy there to play with the kids.  Does it get any better?

Why yes, yes it does.  After that, we went to Sweet Cow, the greatest ice cream shop of all time. 

Make it twice.  Ok three times this past weekend. 

The beauty of this is that I don't think you have to move across the country to implement these changes.  We just chose to use this as an opportunity to do so.  So there you have it.  This was my attempt to share some changes we've made to live a more intentional, enjoyable life as well as to share some our recent photos due to by Facebook diet.

Cheers!