2016 Word of the Year: Adventure

Words of the year are a new thing for our family.  Although I can look back at certain years and see that there certainly seemed to be a theme for it, we've never officially sat down together as a family and voted on a specific word to apply the upcoming year.  We've done resolutions and goals, but never a theme or word for the new year.

2015 was our "Joy" year, although we didn't call it that.  I drew some chalkboard art on our kitchen wall and each month we wrote down a daily joy.  I photographed them each month and it's been fun to reflect back on those months and days and the things that brought happiness to us--big things and small things.

This New Year's, we found ourselves traveling together on a long road trip from seeing my parents over the holidays.  I wanted to do something different for 2016 with the chalkboard wall.  I didn't know quite what I wanted to do, but I did know I wanted to incorporate a word of the year and see where that took us.  Each family member submitted a word and we voted on them--4 points for our favorite and down to 1 point for our least favorite.  The words we came up with were:  fun, adventure, patience and diligence.  Thankfully, my word, adventure won, because if patience had won, it would have been a hard year for me, indeed!

I drew the little saying on my framed chalkboard, which hangs in our breakfast area.  For the kitchen chalkboard wall, I plan to draw something else "adventure-related" and have everyone write up a short 2016 bucket list of adventures and some big goals we each want to achieve this year.  With those written lists reminding us each day, I hope 2016 is the year we reach out and reach up to make those things happen.

What brave thing will you do TODAY?