Wild at Heart!

I’ve been going through a book called, “Wild at Heart,” which has really helped me step up my game in a lot of ways, as both a husband and a daddy! It has helped me to see that every day is full of adventure and can be exciting if I let it be. Here’s how my boys and I unveiled an adventure from 10.25.09.

Last night Holly, the boys and I went to watch our nephew (Andrew) play in a football game. Andrew is in 2nd grade and is going through his end of the year tournament in order to win “The Super Bowl.” As exciting as it was to watch 2nd graders run around the field chasing each other, my boys, Cole and Owen (4 ½ & 2 ½) didn’t find it as impressive as the unexplored woods and neighboring pond that sat right behind us. In fact, Owen (2 ½) yelled out, “DAHDEE…WAHERR” when he saw the pond!!! But since that wasn’t why we were there, I had them sit down beside me so we could watch a 2 hour game together…Well if you have or have had children this age you will understand that this is NOT how things played out! In fact after about 5 minutes of this they were ready for something else and ADVENTURE was calling their names! And if I’m being honest, it was calling my name too!

We headed over to the pond together where we scarred out some bass from their mossy coverings, beside the bank. We would stomp on the ground and the fish would take off, leaving a wake behind them. The boys were impressed by this and Cole basically jumped around the whole pond thinking there was one every 2 feet! Then we headed to the woods! Now getting to the woods was not exactly easy. It meant that we would have to go down a BIG hill! It was so big that Owen wanted to scoot on his bottom so that he wouldn’t fall down the hill. But Cole and I were ready for the adventure so we ran, letting gravity do its thing as our legs did their best to keep us from kissing the ground. Cole’s momentum was so fast that his legs couldn’t keep up…and down he went, tearing both layers of his pants and even the skin on his right knee. I thought it was bad at first but then realized his pants saved him from most of the damage. After we got to the woods and explored as boys do, we left taking with us some cool memories and stories from our adventure of being together!

Let me ask you a question. Are you more like Cole or Owen in this story? Like Owen, do you prefer to take the safest route when it comes to difficult or scary situations in life? Or are you like Cole, where even though a situation is tough or scary, you are still willing to go full speed ahead in order to explore new and uncharted territory…even though it means you could fall or fail? I’m not here to say that one is better than the other. But I will say this, as you look at this picture, Cole is pretty proud of his scar! In fact he was so excited to show his teacher at school today because, to him, it wasn’t just a cut or a scrape. It was his proof to everyone that he had been on an ADVENTURE!!!

What proof do you have from being on an adventure today?