Daydreaming Of A Kid-less Vacation

Often times during a hike, Zac and I will find ourselves behind the others. Ky suggests we are hereditarily slow walkers. I believe I'm out of shape. My husband says we are slow. Whatever the reason, I don't mind. Zac and I are bonding. Zac loves to talk. At some point along the way, Zac will direct the conversation to money. He might ask If this rock were gold, how much do you think it would be worth?  Then I reply, I don't know anything about rocks or gold.  Zac will suggest some dollar amount and I will say Yes because I know where the boy wants the conversation to go. He wants to imagine how he would spend an endless amount of money. It's cute.

I suppose Zac's daydreams are similar to my daydreams about life with adult children. When my free time will be spent freely. When my vacation days accrue endlessly and a vacation means relaxing. Can you hear the steel drum and ocean waves? I think so!

Jenni, from Story of My Life, poses the question If you had 3 months off to do anything in the world, what would you do? My first reaction was pack my bags. I want to go somewhere! There are so many places I haven't seen. I've always wanted to see the United States from coast to coast. A road trip maybe. Some time in the Big Apple. The Nation's capital. The Northwest.

Part of me would like to do something daring. Lately I've been following the journey of two Marines walking across America to bring awareness to Wounded Warriors.  I am inspired. How cool would it be to walk across America? Meet people. Walk with them. Share an important story.

Zac and I talk about the two Marines as we followed the group up the mountain. He agreed a cross country walk should be in our future. Did you catch that? The kid just crashed my kidless vacation daydream! Maybe I am destined to have a tag along.

Where I Come From

First the picture. Can I preface the photo with "It was the 80s?" My mom loved a perm. And we really lucked out because great grandma would do my perm for free. Which makes sense because she wasn't even a hairdresser. I am pretty sure no expense was spared in the boxed solution purchased. I mean when perming a four year old's hair you really need to ensure high quality chemicals, right? Remember Olgilvie?




From the looks of this picture, I think I got the not-quite-right perm. Thanks Mom for being so hip or groovy or whatever you were in 1983. I guess I was hip too...with my permed 80s hair... at age 4. Lesson learned.

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If you have read this blog for any amount of time, then you might know a few things about me.

1.) I am a military wife.

2.) I have three kids.

3.) I grew up in the Midwest (Iowa to be exact).

I am pretty open about the above facts. However, I don't share much else. Not in life. Not on the blog. All things change when I come across a blogging challenge I really like. Jenni from Story of My Life did blogging prompts in May. I loved the opportunity to write. To open up. Create a different dynamic around here. So, I've decided to join Jenni's newest challenge. The first prompt is sharing where you come from or how you became you. 

I have a father and a mother. I've never known them together. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. And my brother. We got shifted around from one grandparents' house to the next for a long time. Unconventional, yes, but the best memories. All of my grandparents lived on the edge of town and there were always places to explore. My brother and I use to get into so much trouble. Ok... really my brother was trouble... I was just the tag along. The little sister.

We probably had more freedom than necessary. My kids would never. But we survived. We caught big bullfrogs and tadpoles in the neighbor's pond. And tried our best to jump over the creek filled to the brim in spring. Bridge To Terabitha anyone? Our creek was a much smaller scale. I would follow my brother to the nearby grain elevator to watch him shoot birds with his BB gun. Sometimes we snuck off to the gravel pits to look for rusted metal crap to collect. Our loot always gave us away. Some days we stayed close and picked fruit from Grandma's trees and tried to pump water from the well.  Things Midwestern kids do.

I know those early years surrounded by family made a huge impression on me. I feel so incredibly blessed to have these special relationships with my grandparents. I certainly feel my value in family and genuine interest in people comes from years of observing my grandparents' generation do the same. My adventurous side was probably a fire lit at a very young age following my mischievous big brother. All combined together to get the adult me in a nutshell. A military wife with three kids from the Midwest.

Blogging Prompts From