I’m not the size 4 I was when I married. But, I’m just not a gym-y person, though I’ve tried. I’ve done the “weight-loss” meetings thing, too. I’m not a morning person, and by nighttime, I’m too pooped to go out walking or to a meeting or whatever, especially without my family. So, tonight, we rolled out an idea we’ve been kicking around for awhile: Family Dance Party!

We chose a Friday Night to roll it out because the kids get to stay up a little later than usual due to no school or church the next morning. Friday Night is usually movie night or some special treat, thus the night all the kids look forward to!

The kids love to have “dance competitions,” which are really free-for-all solo dance sessions with lots of jumping around and acrobatics with siblings (and parents, if they can be recruited) watching. We thought we would tweak this format a bit and just play music everyone could dance to together, as a form of bonding and exercising.

Hubby loves to play around with Audacity and make little clever remixes of our CDs, so his assignment was to create a workout with warm-up, workout and cool-down speeds. He came through brilliantly as the night’s DJ! We had some 70’s and 80’s music (the kids favorite – and ours!) with several genres represented.

The kids danced by themselves, with us, and with each other – hubby and I even did our own tongue-in-cheek disco version of Dancing with the Stars!

We did a workout a few seconds shy of a twenty minute workout, with the hope that we will build up to a full forty-five minute workout at some point. We did a fairly formal cool-down session with stretching.

The kids had a blast, as did we grown-ups. It was a great night of bonding, music appreciation, and pleasurable exercise.