Around the World in 480 Days
The Idea
This school year, my mom asked me to think about something I wanted to challenge myself to change in my life. I had to think about it for a long time. I wanted to be stronger again and worry a lot less. I asked her the same thing. She said she wanted to get stronger too, worry less and take better care of herself. We started challenging each other. My mom even started doing conditioning with me (that is fun to watch by the way). It made working toward making changes easier when we had each other to encourage and push. That’s when we got this idea. What if our whole family did this together? After all, all of us need to be healthy. Not just for ourselves, but for each other! So, we came up with a BRILLIANT plan (that’s a mom word, btw). We would get our WHOLE family to join us in setting healthy goals and working everyday to reach them. In gymnastics, we have partners we condition and train with. They cheer us on and push us to be our best. We decided we would partner each of our family with someone else we thought would be the perfect match. And then we would challenge them to join us on our journey around the world in 480 days!!! (Don’t get too excited. We aren’t ACTUALLY traveling around the world. It is a virtual trip).
The Challenge
To Join Our Family Journey to Being Healthier, Happier and Stronger in 480 Days.
Around the World in 80 Days is a book by Jules Verne I read in book club. In it, a funny professor and his accidental friend take off on a challenge to circumnavigate the world in exactly 80 days. Along the way, they meet lots of challenges, try a lot of new things and learn a lot about themselves and one another. We are going to take a “journey around the world” in 480 days. That will take us to Christmas 2017. There are approximately 24700 miles around the earth and I have plotted out a journey that will take us approximately 20,000 miles to virtually navigate the globe. When I was 7 and I was waiting to go to China to get my sister, I started a blog called Gracie Walks to China. I challenged all my church family and my mom’s Facebook friends to record all the miles and steps they walked and report them to me. I counted them and then plotted them on my map until we reached the Great Wall of China. IT WAS AWESOME! And lots of people walked, ran, swam, jumped and danced their miles for me to get to China. LET”S DO IT AGAIN!!!! How will we do this?
We, Gracie and my mom, CHALLENGE Grandpa, Nana, Gramsy, Auntie Drea, Auntie Rose, Mark, Dad, and Emma to take this journey with us!
The Steps to Our Journey: A Great journey starts with a single step...
Step 1: Travel Partners
Everyone likes to travel with a buddy. Your partner in the journey will be very important. You will share your goals for health together, and encourage each other to STICK TO IT! You will check in with each other AT LEAST 3 TIMES A WEEK. You will make sure each other is doing all the important things they need to do to stay healthy and you are going be their BIGGEST fan.
Step 2: SET GOALS
The journey around the world things will help you stay on track and keep to the plan but all of have specific needs. For example, my MOM WORRIES TOO MUCH AND DOESN’T TAKE TIME FOR HERSELF. She needs to work on this. She also drinks more coffee than water. I, on the other hand, lost a lot of muscle this year and I need to build my muscle back for gymnastics and so I can be stronger than the boys. ALL boys. :)
Step 3: Follow the Healthy Checklist and EARN MILES to add to our journey:
This is starting to sound like A LOT, BUT IT IS NOT! You just need a checklist and that makes everything doable. My mim made me do the math. My journey around the world in 480 days is approximately 20,000 miles. 20,000 divided by 480 days is about 41 miles. Divide that by 10 travelers and we have about 4 miles a day to get to our goal. STOP LAUGHING! We are going to earn miles using our awesome checklist. So, here is your daily checklist:
____ 1. Eat 3 healthy meals a day (you know you can’t eat cookies ALL the time Grandpa) EARN 1 MILE
____ 2. Drink your 6 glasses of water a day! (Emma, you are too little for that many. ) EARN 1 MILE
____ 3. Take 1 hour of happy healthy brain building, heart filling time a day. (worship, read, do a puzzle, sing, take pictures, write a poem) EARN 1 MILE
_____4. Take your needed vitamins, supplements, Carrot juice and medicine every day when you are supposed to! EARN 1 MILE
_____5. EXERCISE: Run, jump, dance, walk, swim, do gymnastics or bike. It doesn’t matter, but count your time, steps, or miles you completed. You will report this time to me and I will calculate it into to miles. EARN at least 1/2 mile a day, but try to do more!!!! The more you do, the farther we travel!!!
Step 4: RECORD YOUR JOURNEY
Record all your AWESOME daily progress on my blog. Every day I will be posting an update on our journey, telling you where we are (not everyday), giving props to everyone, and keeping track of our progress with a mom forced math assignment (bar graphs…grrr). I will also be sharing fun facts you cant find on Google. You can record your daily progress in that day’s comment section or if you want to call, text me or tell your travel partner, that works too! MY blog is http://graciejourneystochina.blogspot.com
TUNE IN MONDAY TO FIND OUT WHERE OUR FIRST DESTINATION WILL BE!!!
TRAVEL PARTNERS
GRANDPA & ME (GRACIE)
NANA & AUNTIE DREA
GRAMSY & EMMA (kinda me, as I interpret for Emma)
AUNTIE ROSE & MOM (that’s Marca to you guys)
MARK & DAD (That’s Matt to you guys
Travel Partner Responsibilities
1 Help each other set personal health goals.
Think about specific changes you need to make and share them.
2 Encourage each other to just keep going and do your best
3. Hold each other accountable
4. Text, call, visit or condition or cook together!
5. Help each other remember to record your journey.
Summary Cheat Sheet:
We are doing a family health journey and recording all our efforts (exercise, diet, water, vitamins, quiet personal time) in the form of virtual miles that together are helping us navigate around the globe.
I am keeping a blog where we will share all our great accomplishments.
We all have family partners who are going to cheer us on and help us keep going!
We are going to get healthy.
So let’s get started! We begin Monday, September 5th, 2016. A journey begins with a single step!…Tune in on my blog to find out where our first destination and distance will be! And what do we get when we complete our journey around the world in 480 days??????????
WE ARE GOING TO HAWAII FOR CHRISTMAS 2017!!!!!!!!
Just kidding!!! I told mom we needed a big prize at the end of our journey, like a REAL trip and she said that good health was reward enough….I still think we need to do a big trip…if not Hawaii then somewhere else awesome.
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