“Live life fully while you’re here. Expe­ri­ence every­thing. Take care of your­self and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You’re going to any­way, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the oppor­tu­nity to learn from your mis­takes: find the cause of your prob­lem and elim­i­nate it. Don’t try to be per­fect; just be an excel­lent exam­ple of being human.” ~ Tony Robbins

Sim­ple fun.  Some­times it’s the best kind of fun.  The video above is from our recent raft­ing trip.  We had a sand beach, a calm river, an inflat­able raft, and a cou­ple of buck­ets.  We ended up with a home­made water­slide into the river.  Kids were kids.  Adults were kids.  River guides were kids.  What a fun way to cool off after being out­side in the heat all day!

Some­times life gets hec­tic and com­pli­cated.  And some­times, life ends up not being much fun when this hap­pens.  Then, maybe we plan fun things to do.  Maybe a visit to a water­park, or a night out at the bars, or a trip to the zoo, or ??.  And that’s all good (and fun).  But we can also make our own fun.  We don’t always have to look out­side of what we already have to bring the fun back into our lives.

One time a cou­ple of years ago, we made an obsta­cle course in our back­yard.  Some ball, some rope, a cou­ple of 2x4’s, some water.  In the end, we had an after­noon of fun, and many mem­o­ries that will last for a long time.

What kind of sim­ple fun things can you do?  Be cre­ative.  Try things (maybe they’ll be fun, maybe not).  If it doesn’t work out, ditch it and move on to some­thing else.  Use the things you already have to cre­ate your own fun!

“To myself I am only a child play­ing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undis­cov­ered before me.” ~ Isaac Newton

Life’s a beach.  What does that con­jure up in your head?  Is it a play on words for “Life’s a bi***”, or is it some­thing quite oppo­site — that life really is like a beach.

After just return­ing from vaca­tion, where we spent sev­eral days camp­ing on beaches, stop­ping for lunch on beaches, and warm­ing up on beaches — this metaphor on life came into my head.

And I say that life IS like a beach.  Some­thing about a nice sand beach is very relax­ing.  Think about a walk on the beach.  Or a camp­fire at the beach.  Or just rest­ing at the beach.  Relax­ing and calming.

A beach can also be fun.  Think about sand vol­ley­ball at the beach.  Or swim­ming at the beach.  Or build­ing sand cas­tles at the beach.  All fun activities.

A beach can also be stormy.  Think about watch­ing a storm com­ing in from the ocean.  Or waves crash­ing against the shore.

Life is a beach.  Some­times calm­ing, some­times fun, and some­times stormy.  Life is what we make it.  Some cir­cum­stances we can’t con­trol, just like a beach can’t stop a storm from com­ing in.  A beach is what we make it to be.  Do we want fun — then play more games at the beach.  Do we want more calm — more walks along the beach.  And that’s how life is also.  We can choose what we desire for our life.  Sure, some things are not within our con­trol.  But those that are, we can choose to do what we want.

What do you choose?  What lies undis­cov­ered ahead for you?  On the beach of your life, what do you want it to look like?

“If my ship sails from sight, it doesn’t mean my jour­ney ends, it sim­ply means the river bends.” ~ John Enoch Powell

Our fam­ily vaca­tion has come to an end.  We have arrived back home.  It has been a great jour­ney together as a fam­ily to spend time out amongst nature, and away from the wor­ries of daily life.  Being out on a river, in the mid­dle of Idaho, really was being dis­con­nected from the real world.  No cell phones.  No com­put­ers.  No houses.  No roads.  Just the river.  And our boat mates.  And our river guides.  And the occas­sional other boat. A few ani­mals.  Noth­ing else.

It’s amaz­ing how bright the stars are in the absence of the nor­mal lights we have every­day from the cities we live by.  What an awe­some view of the world to look into the night sky, sur­rounded by lit­er­ally mil­lions of stars, and really expe­ri­ence the vast­ness of this uni­verse we are part of!

We have sur­vived on the river!  But this is just part of our jour­ney that con­tin­ues as we go through life.  The river of life goes on, and we are thank­ful for the oppor­tu­nity we’ve had as a fam­ily to spend this time together with each other.  This has been an expe­ri­ence we’ll always remem­ber, and a fam­ily mem­ory we’ll always have!