Summer of Adventure

As many of you may have heard, we received a very generous gift from my grandparents with the instructions to go on an adventure that was:
1. challenging
2. outdoors
3. memorable
4. not a cruise.
This was both a super exciting and very daunting task. Exciting for the obvious reasons. Daunting because
a. I am not a very outdoorsy person.
b. We have 2 small children
c. We wanted our adventure to take place this summer and our vacation time was already a little tight.

So this is the plan that we came up with: we are having a summer of adventure! We loaded up on outdoorsy gear and the idea is to have an adventure every weekend throughout the whole summer. We started just after the official start of summer on June 21 and will go through the official end of summer on September 21. We are including our kids on as many of our adventures as we can. We think this will not only create better memories and challenge them, but it will further challenge us as well to plan for their needs and still have a great experience for all.

So without further ado, here is the report on our first 2 adventures!

 To kick off our Summer of Adventure, Nate and I ran a 5k together. He is an avid runner. I am not. This was only my second 5k. He was kind enough to run with me and I beat my time by about 10 minutes! It was a Color Me Rad race which means we were covered head to toe in colored powder by the end. It was a lot of fun and a great way to kick off our summer!

For our next adventure, we got the kids packed up and went up to the Boise foothills for a family hike. It was Clara's first hike and she walked the whole way! For a girl who whines about climbing the stairs at home several times a day, that was a huge achievement! I loved seeing Clara realize the rewards of doing something a little bit hard. Grace was a trooper in the fancy new back pack. She loved it up there.  We got rained on on our way down, but the unexpected is what makes it an adventure, right?

 All ready to go!

 

 Clara touching the sky

 Enjoying our snack at the top

 Taking a turn with the pack

We made it!

Stay tuned next week for our next adventure!