Dana Robb-December, Family Service Projects and Outings

Our family goal this year was to do at least one service project each month and go on a family outing all together.  Usually it's me taking the kids while my husband works, or him taking the kids while I catch up on projects at home.  That's all good, but I knew we also needed that time all together. Not all our trips ended up including dad, but here's what we ended up doing:

January: Natural History Museum of Utah.  One of our favorite places!  Five levels, lots to explore, we never get tired of this place.

February: Discovery Museum.  Another favorite.  Once a year we get the free exploration pass from the Salt Lake City Library System, and get to explore the Discovery Museum, and Red Butte Gardens, NHMU.

March: Family History Library in Riverton.  My first time there.  The girls ended up falling asleep so Chris stayed in the truck with them while the boys and I went inside to learn and print family pedigree charts.

April: Cathedral of the Madeline.  We studied about cathedrals in art this year and made a trip to the Cathedral in Salt Lake and attended evening mass.  It was eye opening for our boys.  We even got a tour afterwards and learned more about the building.  And then disappointed the priest (?) when he found out we were Mormons.

May: NHMU Chocolate exhibit.  Another trip to NHMU.  Free day once a quarter.  Check out the website.

June: Family day at the best park in Daybreak Utah with zipline, creek, and lots to climb.

July: Comedy of Errors, and Cove Fort.  This was a trip for me and the kids.  Chris stayed home working hard in the hot summer sun.  We studied "Comedy of Errors" just over a year ago so when I found out it was playing at the Shakespearean Theatre in Cedar City, I had to take my boys.  We loved it!  On the way home, we stopped at cove Fort, which we had just learned had been bought by a great-grandpa and run for years. 

August: camping with our ward and bonus: watching a cattle drive with real cowboys.  We all love camping and just wish we could do more of it.  Going over night is never enough, but longer trips are hard to fit in.  We were the last to leave and lucked out in watching the cattle drive, which made us feel liked we'd stepped into a John Wayne movie.

September: another trip to NHMU.  This time we focused on our cytology unit. Plus a family hike to our favorite spot-Hidden Falls.

October:  Cabin and four wheelers with some friends.  Two separate weekends.  Warm fall, shooting and riding.

November: Boondocks.  A yearly tradition.  Through the Utah Adoption Council we get seriously discounted tickets the first Saturday of National Adoption Month.  

December: Free homeschool day at NHMU horse exhibit.  Learned a lot about these domesticated creatures.

As for service we enjoyed a variety of experiences.  This was such a great part of our year, I want to keep up the tradition.  My kids have become such great sports when it comes to reaching out to other people.  A book I highly recommend is 52 Weeks of Fun Family Service by Merrilee Boyack.  I just need to get better about documenting with pictures.

January: Grandma Robb's birthday.  We showed up and surprised her with breakfast and each of our kids did some cleaning for her.

February: homemade Valentine's cards for grandmas, aunts, and cousins

March: family history - indexing, finding names, and temple work

April: community cleaning at Sunset Ridge

May: spent a week helping Grandma and Grandpa pack up to move

June: weeding at the neighbor's as secret service agents

July and August are unaccounted for.  There must have been some service outside of our home that we performed, but it's totally slipped my mind!

September: watering a neighbor's plants and getting her mail.  Someone became a little possessive of the keys...

October: working in the neighbor's garden, cookies to a new family in the neighborhood, flowers and card to a sick friend, helped out a friend who was moving by taking her kids to the park

November: wrote to a sister missionary, and took flowers and card to a less active sister in the ward.

December: made lots of cookies and treats for all our neighbor's and shoveled a neighbor's walk.