Taking a Tech Timeout is something that is hard for my family. Whether we are hooked up to iPads, video games or cell phones, there is something that is always distracting us.

Both my husband Walt and I work on the computer a lot, him as a web designer, I as a blogger, so we are very into tech. Our son Cam, now age 11, has also become very into tech as well. Which I find a good and a bad thing.

Good Points:

• He works on school projects very fast. I think he mastered Word in half the time it took me to learn it in high school!
• He is very Internet savvy and has his own Minecraft blog.
• He will be really prepared for the college and work world.
• Stay in touch with family and friends far away. Most of my side of the family lives in different states. Skype, Facetime, Facebook and even Xbox help us all keep in touch.

Bad Points:

• Sometimes a beautiful weekend day can go by, without us going outside. Instead, we veg on the couch, playing Monopoly on our iPads (yes, they have an app to play against other people in the room, how cool is that?! See how technology sucks you in?)
• For my son, Minecraft is an addictive past-time. While I try to find the educational purposes in it, sometimes it's just a time suck.
• Missing time. I don't want Cam to look back on his childhood and think he spent so much time on electronic gadgets and none on the old-fashioned fun, like I remember as a child. For example, going to the county fair, spending time with family, hanging out with my friends outside...
• Getting prepared for power outages. We've had a few power outages in the past year, and it caused panic in my house. Uncharged phones and iPads just sat there. My son asked if he really had to read a book or play an old-fashioned board game. It was funny at first, until it wasn't and my son got really bored.

Because of all this, we were inspired to take a Tech Timeout this weekend from TechTimeout. Be sure to go here to read and sign the pledge with your family! Here is what we did:

Hour 1 Friday: Had to be the worst. Everyone wanted to hang out and watch tv. Instead, I asked everyone to do something low tech, like read. Did not go over well.

Hour 1 Saturday:

Cam decided to read this LEGO magazine:

I worked on some recipes I had been meaning to try. With fall almost here, it has inspired me to cook with pumpkin and apple!

Sunday:

Cam played with his new Angry Bird game.

I took some time to go through some old photo albums. Organizing photos takes a lot of time! I also made my grandmother's lasagna recipe.

Overall, my family and I really found this to be a valuable learning experience. We will definitely be doing this again in the future!