Today, I’m feeling really motivated to write about dreams. The Jack Johnson lyric, “Don’t let your dreams be dreams,” has been a bit of an unofficial mantra (ya know, minus the actual connotation of the song, just that particular line) to me for quite some time. I have to say, I have always been a dreamer and starting in my early 20’s I made a goal of living as many of them as I could.
When I was 25, Matt and I were newly engaged and talking about our future life together. We thought we’d eventually like to have kids (spoiler alert, we have two now!) and talked a lot about what that would look like. My dream was to buy a camper and spend as much time as we could on the road, whether that’s near or far, showing our kids as much of our country as possible. Teaching them about science in our national parks, history at different sites and an understanding of different cultures + beliefs all along the way. Admittedly, this was my dream more than Matt’s.
Flash forward, to 2021, we had our daughter, Charleigh Jo, and these thoughts started creeping up in my head again. But Matt wasn’t sold. His fear was travel time and inability to feel like we could still take international trips if we had invested money in a camper, which I get. But I still found myself dreaming of it.
In November, our little boy, Liam, was born and now, we’re currently just a few days away from our daughter’s second birthday. Time is flying. As the new year was approaching, I told myself this is our year we bring adventure back into our lives. We started off thinking we’d try to take a weekend trip each month. Matt and I, then, booked our first international trip together in five years. We have a big road trip in the fall planned. It’s been truly lining up to be just that, an adventure.
I mentioned in my January 2023 Roundup that we’d seen a documentary about the Buffalo River, which is an area that Matt and I loved exploring. We got out every-other-weekend or so before kids & a house to hike and explore. It was after that film that Matt said, ‘Let’s do it! Let’s get the camper!’ We decided that night to start looking into getting a camper. Don’t let your dreams be dreams.
It’s been a couple weeks of intense research. If you know Matt, you know that when he’s fixated on something he is fixated on something. He digs deep, reads anything and everything he can, watches videos, maps out floor plans, measures out spaces. So last week, we ordered a truck – it’s insane that this is the way that buying a car is now – and we’re now the proud owners of a camper! Hopefully, we’ll be able to hit the road in a couple of months, but until then, I’ll be getting supplies and preparing for our first getaway!
I’ve been riding so high on life! It’s amazing that we’re going to be able to show our kids even more adventures! We’re so looking forward to endless adventures on the weekends nearby! Trips to state parks, national parks, national forests and everything in between!
Here’s to living life; to living by ‘Don’t let your dreams be dreams!’ and remembering that each and every day is a precious gift. I can’t wait to share all the adventures we get into, all the things we mess-up on and all the laughs in between!
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