Adventure

Five different states we’ve had the pleasure of experiencing life in. Each having different cultures, new people, strange food, beautiful and not so beautiful scenery and it’s been fun. A challenge at times, but overall fun. It has also been an adventure. We tell that to our 3 kids a lot. Life is an adventure. We want to live it. To really experience it. For us, living and dying in the same place without ever having expanded our horizons to life lived differently, would be disappointing. I often get these hankerings of adventures I’d like to take and I tell them to Jode. You know, when I’m trying to make sure I get in all my 2,000 words for the day.

I share with him how I’d like to...

hike down the Grand Canyon {not sure about hiking back up though}

take our kids white water rafting

visit California

see the vastness of Montana

travel the world for a year in an RV

and my latest…

is to one day live in the city. In a cool little downtown place where we have big sliding barn doors on the inside, a space up top the roof where we go for fresh air, just a walk around the corner takes us to the quaint coffee shop that knows me by name, and the bookstore you can get lost in for hours. {which this last hankering was brought back on from seeing “the vow”} Do you ever see something or maybe read a book that lights a spark already rooted inside of you?

First move 18hours away from what we'd always known as home. {2002}

I like change. The change-up in location, the change-up of routine, the going, the seeing_ the doing. I crave adventure. But not the kind so much, that involves jumping out of planes or even off of a ledge with a bungee….nah, I tend to enjoy  my feet being planted on the ground.

I remember for my  26^th birthday Jode surprised me by taking me away for the weekend to snow ski. Neither of us had ever been before and neither of us had a clue as to how we were to get off a lift without falling. I still tell to this day that I only fell bc he pushed off on my leg each time we went to lift ourselves up. Therefore allowing him able to stay up on his skis and me fall every single time… I spent the majority of my time on my butt, but can I tell you how exhilarating it was. Being surrounded by the mountains of snow and all the beauty there was for us to take in. Tackling and taking on something new together that we had never done. It was an adventure and one I’ll never ever forget.

Snow Skiing 2003

It also was around this time that we kind of made a pact with each other promising we would continue to have adventures and do things that neither of us had ever done before … but we would do them with each other. We wanted to share those experiences in each other’s presence. 

And some days I find myself dreaming up new ways of adventure together. Sometimes it’s small things like eating at the new restaurant that serves a food we’ve never eaten before. Or seeing a band in concert we’ve never heard, shopping at Whole Foods instead of Wal-Mart, taking a new route home, buying exotic different flowers for the kitchen vase…. Just to shake things up a little. Because life can be an adventure if you look at it that way. I think it all just kind of depends on your perspective. 

First Dinner Boat Cruise 2004

heather.