In this week's podcast I'm wrapping up Season 5 - I usually launch about 25 episodes per season, and this is the last of the episodes this season.  It's a good time to reflect on the latest adventures of the family.

We just returned from our annual trip to the Northwest, into Wyoming and Montana, visiting the National Parks, National Forests and Grasslands, and Bureau of Land Management areas.  There are so many things to consider when making a cross-country trip like this, for 3 weeks.  Not only to pack up yourself, but everyone in your suburban - the FIVE boys in my life.  And a few years in a row we even took our DOGS!

I'll share some of the reasons why, as parents, we do what we do.  The messages that we teach and preach to our kids, not knowing if they are listening or if it's sticking.  Then one day, out of the blue, one of the boys will recall a memory that did not mean so much to me, but he can recall it detail by detail.  When asked why it meant so much to him, Luke's reply was that he played in the snow with his brothers, or had a pinecone fight with his brothers, or a long picnic lunch playing on a downed tree with his brothers.  The common theme?  Brothers.

Obviously, memories were being made right under my nose, and details of these picnics, road trips, and camping nights stuck.  So did the safety messages we taught them over the years.  It showed when the boys would return to school in the fall.  When they were younger, they would have to journal during class time.  Every year, at the end of the school year, I would collect their notebooks and flip through them.  Every single story, article, poem, drawing, and recollection was about our family vacations and adventures.

Then came the years we brought the dogs...

Our lives never slowed down when we had the kids - we just learned how to include them, adapt our adventures and overcome some obstacles along the way!  I'm so glad we did!

Enjoy!!

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