This was the day that I learned that it’s okay to be a little scared. It’s okay to put yourself out there for something that you believe in and that is important to you. It’s okay to venture out into the unknown, big or small…
You have to live. Each day is a blessing with new things and experiences waiting to be discovered…just GO for it. Time doesn’t wait and moments keep ticking by. Grab them while you can, and don’t look back.
Here is my story and why I started this blog: (originally posted in 2014)
It was the summer of 2014 and I was stuck in the same ole rut…having the desire to get my kids out and exploring nature but having no idea where to start.
I wanted to go camping, but was afraid of the task on my own (it’s not really my husbands thing). I wanted to take my kids to different places, but when you’ve got 3 kids and you don’t know where to go, it can feel well, over-whelming. At least it did for me. It would have been easier to stay home and let me kids play video games or watch movies (we did spend time in the back yard, but that can get somewhat dull) in the heat of the Texas summer, but NO…that is not experiencing life. And as a mom, I have this deep desire to expose my kids to things and watch their world open up! But sometimes there is fear involved.
So I got this idea…(me thinking) “What if I just load up a picnic, and enough supplies for the day, and just pick a location, and go.” Yeah, I thought, I’m just going to DO IT. You see, I was afraid. I was afraid of taking my kids somewhere that was lame, like a lake that was nasty that they couldn’t even get in the water. I was afraid of finding a hiking trail that was nothing more than over grown poison ivy (which, by the way, we did find). I was afraid of them fighting the entire time in the car, or hoping for something fun just to be disappointed and angry and most of all, to not want to do this again. I know I can’t please them all of the time but this time I rrreeaalllyyy wanted to. I really wanted them to have a great day outside filled with discovery and fun, something that would fuel a new passion inside of them.
So we went. I picked Cedar Hill State Park (review coming soon). My kids loved it! My 12 year old and his cousin enjoyed throwing mud at each other in the lake. My 7 year old brought a nature back pack for our hike, where he pointed out so many different kinds of plants and collected stuff for his nature museum, and my 3 year old was just excited to explore and have fun!
This is seriously one of my best memories…(and really some not so great things did happen this day as well).
It was that day that I decided to provide a resource for other mom’s, dads, or whoever. A resource that they could look at and know what they are getting into.
(Picture below is my 7 year old exploring, asking questions like “does this cactus have milk?” He even brought an explorer bag (that I recommended and packed)). LOVE THIS SO MUCH.
I want to encourage people to go outside and enjoy the simple pleasures of nature.
***This is important and I want you to know this*** I do not have any experience as an outdoors-man, I can’t start a fire with flint, I don’t know how to survive without my supplies brought from home, I can’t identify plant species, I don’t even know how to identify many different snakes. But those are all things that I’m planning to learn on this journey (did you see that I’m taking the “Master Naturalist” Course?
http://www.upforadventure.com/consider-becoming-master-naturalist/
(link is currently broke bc I lost all of my content, working on rebuilding)
“Starting where you are is a million times better than never starting at all.”