66 Family Activities in 60 Months
Our network server at home is almost full; there’s only about 8GB of disk space left. With five digital cameras loaded up with vacation pictures, and a small stack of CDs still to be ripped and added to the iTunes network, that remaining 8GB is gonna go fast.
While I’m waiting for a new NAS device to arrive from Amazon later this week, I’ve been organizing, consolidating, and compressing as much data as I can in the meantime. The latest data to co through has been our vast repository of digital photos — there are almost 24,000 images!
Having virtually thumbed through almost a decade of pictures, and having recently had reasonable exposure to imagined life in Mexican slums, I am reminded at how fortunate we are as a family group.
During just the past five years, we have:
- Gone whale watching in Monterey, CA (2003-09)
- Founded an impromptu air guitar band in our living room (2003-10)
- Gone camping for an extended weekend (2003-10)
- Hunted for and carved out the perfect pumpkins (2003-10)
- Gone to a White Elephant party (2003-12)
- Raced slot cars (2004-01)
- Sat down for an at-home Craft Project day (2004-02)
- Visited the New Almaden Mining Museum (2004-03)
- Had fun at the Bonfante Gardens theme park (2004-04)
- Walked along the Elkhorn Slough, near Santa Cruz, CA (2004-05)
- Enjoyed a traveling “parking-lot” carnival (2004-05)
- Gone boating and innertubing on Isabella Lake (2004-07)
- Vacationed in Virginia, and visited Washington DC (2004-07)
- Rowed across Loch Lomond to have a family picnic (2004-08)
- Had even more fun at Bonfante Gardens (2004-08)
- Visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium (2004-10)
- Spent a weekend in the snow in the Sierras (2005-01)
- Seen the Monsters Inc ice show (2005-02)
- Colored and later played hide-and-seek with Easter eggs (2005-03)
- Spent a long weekend at Disneyland (2005-05)
- Entertained relatives from Illinois (2005-06)
- Visited San Jose’s Discovery and Tech Museums (2005-07)
- Played tourist for a day in San Francisco (2005-07)
- Enjoyed a day in the sun at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (2005-07)
- Spent $1000 in Mad Money (2005-10)
- Sought, found, and carved more pumpkins (2005-10)
- Built several Lego projects (2005-12)
- Attended a night-time Fall Festival fundraiser for school (2005-10)
- Scoured San Jose neighborhoods for holiday light shows (2005-12)
- Played lots of chess (2006-02)
- Colored more Easter eggs (2006-04)
- Baked cookies (2006-04)
- Rescued a stray dog for a grateful owner (2006-04)
- Went camping for another long weekend (2006-05)
- Went for a ride on the Jones Railroad in Vasona Park (2006-06)
- Vacationed on Cape Code in Massachusetts (2006-06)
- Watched fireworks from the top of an office building (2006-07)
- Demolished a shed (2006-09)
- Went camping for yet another long weekend (2006-09)
- Got lost in one of the world’s largest corn mazes (2006-10)
- Sought, found, and carved even more cool pumpkins (2006-10)
- Engaged in science discovery at home with microscopes (2006-10)
- Seen a live performance of the Nutcracker Ballet (2006-12)
- Visited a local outdoor Christmas festival (2006-12)
- Rebuilt a wooden fence (2007-03)
- Colored more Easter eggs (2007-04)
- Romped on a little-known beach near Davenport, CA (2007-04)
- Played a couple rounds of miniature golf (2007-04)
- Toured a sticker factory (2007-04)
- Visited a safari park in Marin County (2007-04)
- Demolished our kitchen to prep for remodeling (2007-05)
- Spent another long weekend at Disneyland (2007-06)
- Enjoyed more sun at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (2007-08)
- Journeyed through the California redwoods at night via open-air train (2007-08)
- Hosted a Ukrainian orphan girl in our home for two weeks (2007-10)
- Attended the night-time Fall Festival fundraiser for school again (2007-10)
- More perfect pumpkins (2007-10)
- Enjoyed a cloudy day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk (2007-11)
- Test-drove a Hummer just for the heck of it (2007-11)
- Drove go-karts for an afternoon (2007-11)
- Baked lots more cookies (2007-12)
- Played in the snow in the Sierras for another weekend (2007-12)
- Spent an afternoon with a patrol officer (2008-02)
- Colored yet more Easter eggs (2008-04)
- Renovated a house in Antioch (2008-04 through 2008-07)
- Vacationed for a week and a half in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico (2008-08)
That’s an average of slightly more than one family activity per month, and it only includes the fun stuff deduced from those photos that I have loaded up, organized, and are easily listable; I’m sure there are many other family activities I’ve forgotten to mention. And they doesn’t even really include traditional family get-togethers like Thanksgiving Day, Christmas, birthdays, dinner outings, and the like.
How does this rate when compared to your family? Do you do much more together, less, or about the same?
