​Wait. Writers Camp, Couples Camp, and now Family Camp? We’ll, we’re kicking around the idea.

We have many friends who would love to attend Couples Camp (and whom we’d love to have join us), but they have young children whom they aren’t comfortable leaving with other caretakers.

So we began researching US-based locations for Family Camp. And of course, we want to go big. We’re talking pool, hot tub, water slide, ping-pong, video games, pool table, horseshoes, electronic dart board, a tennis court, all adjacent to a river for kayaking, inner tubes, and paddleboards.

We’re not looking at a single large ho

use, but a private property with multiple buildings so everyone has their own space. We want enough room so that families can bring their kids and maybe even a niece or nephew if they so choose.

We might have found the perfect location (pictured below) and we’re toying with booking it for a long weekend (so kids miss no more than a day or two

of school) in October and/or March. It would accommodate 4 or 5 families – parents who want to have an unforgettable experience with their kids, but also enjoy a bit of time to themselves while they kids have the run of the property. Like all of our retreats, all meals, drinks, and recreation would be included.

We’re still talking. We’re still running the numbers.

But we’re leaning toward pulling the trigger. Because we know, without a doubt, that Family Camp would be an absolute blast.

What do you think?

Last week our shoes were borrowed by the neighbor’s dogs. (You read that right). The dogs are super friendly, always greet us when we come and go, and I always take time to pet them.

Then one day we had to leave our shoes outside because they were muddy. The next day the shoes were gone.

Surely no one had stolen our stinky sneakers, right?

But they were gone.

Our only real concern was the GRIT challenge we’re doing. We were about to start our 4th consecutive month and the challenge involves daily workouts. Our shoes were kind of important.

Could we find a place to buy shoes in this tiny town? We’re in a relatively small town in Mexico and we didn’t bring much. We don’t have anything resembling spare pairs of shoes unless you count flip-flops. Would we have to drive all the way to Cabo to buy new shoes? Or make a day trip to La Paz?

Or we could just do everything barefoot on the beach, we reasoned. That would work too.

While I was working out how we’d complete our workouts without shoes, Mike began wondering if the neighbor’s dogs might have something to do with our missing sneakers. He widened his search for the shoes to include the entire dirt road we’re on.

He found them down the way, placed high on a fence post. Someone had found the shoes and placed them up there so the dogs couldn’t continue to chew on them.

My shoes are fine, perhaps a little tenderized. Mike had to tie segments of his shoelaces back together to keep them functional. But they’re still functional.

At no point throughout this debacle did we think that a little detail like lack of shoes would stop us from completing a challenge that we’d committed to. When I commit to a challenge, I want to be nothing short of unstoppable. I truly believe that if you’re determined to get there, you’ll always find the path.

We have will, so we’ll always find a way.

Shoes help, too.

We grow up hearing that this is a really bad thing. That things like television and drugs will kill off your brain cells. I remember being a kid and visualizing this – then worrying that if I kept watching Saturday morning cartoons, I’d run out of them altogether.

As an adult, I’d argue that some of your brain cells should be killed off. The idea is to rebuild the mind, but first you have to destroy the part of your brain that operates because of convention. The brain cells that tell you to go along with the herd, those are the ones that have to go.

For over a decade I’ve been hearing lots of reasons why Mike and I cannot or should not travel internationally for months at a time with our children.

Also of note: For over a decade Mike and I have been traveling internationally for months at a time with our children.

The conventional, herd mentality, sometimes given voice by those around us, says:

“It’s too dangerous.”
“You can’t take your kids out of school.”
“It costs too much money.”
“Kids need routine.”

None of these things are true.

#1 Danger. I have more fear sending my kids to school in the United States than I do taking them overseas. I have no intention of stopping either one.

#2 Education. Have you heard of the internet? (If you’re reading this, you have). Online education options are amazing and free. Also, it turns out that other countries have schools just like we do.

#3 Money. During some of our trips (notably Spain and Brazil), it was actually cheaper for us to leave the US and live in those other countries for two months than it would have been if we’d just stayed home. Think about that. It’s both crazy and true.

#4 Routine. Not all kids need routine. Most are surprisingly adaptable. More so than their parents. This is just the adults projecting what they feel themselves or repeating what they’ve heard, without giving it real thought.

In the past decade we have had amazing experiences with our children. We’ve hiked in the Amazon in Brazil, watched caber tossing in Scotland, spent Christmas in Tasmania, kayaked in rural Thailand, explored castles in Ireland, released baby sea turtles in Mexico, visited Angkor Wat in Cambodia, hiked mountains in Alaska, and held owls in Spain. These are just a few of the things we never would have experienced if we’d listened to the naysayers and gone along with conventional thinking.

The lifestyle we’ve chosen and how we travel with our kids is just one example of killing off conventional thinking to open up a world of possibilities.

We all have control over own stories.

Sometimes we just need to realize that and regain control if we’ve subconsciously given it up along the way.