Pump It Up

So last summer I renamed this little bloggy blog "The Adventure," all pumped up about how I was going to be all kinds of adventurous. The summer before that I'd used August as Adventure Month. We did all kinds of cool things and went all kinds of new places, and it was amazing. I was super bummed I hadn't thought of it earlier. So the following year (last summer) I set out with the goal of at least one new Adventure every week. I was no fool to think that I could do some new, fun, exciting thing once a week during the school year, but the summer was ready to be experienced. And I did it. Kind of. I really don't know where my summer went, to be honest. I had all kinds of grand ideas. Because I can't be spontaneous spontaneously, I started planning my Adventures while my kids were taking tests in June. I know, Teacher of the Year, yada yada. But I had valid reasons--for certain places, Ben was free under two, so I had to squeeze those in before July 17. I followed through on a few of my Great Ideas--like going to the park at least once a week, and
I hit a few places on my list. I didn't quite make it to the beach at least once a week, but that wasn't so much my failure as it was the weather's, seeing as the sun didn't come out until the last week of August, and a cold ocean is not a fun ocean. Anyway, I digress. I failed (kind of) at the summer adventures. And I intended to continue adventuring into the school year. I knew it wouldn't be once a week, but I really really wanted to be more deliberate with how we spent our weekends. So often we don't really plan ahead, and what ends up happening is we sit around Saturday mornings saying, "What do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?" And so on, ad infinitum until we end up running errands and maybe going to the mall.

I suck at Adventure.

This summer, I will tell you right now, will not be as adventurous as I'd like it to be, for reasons you will learn within a couple of days. Suffice it to say, the Adventure needs to commence, like, NOW.

So in a rare moment of the adventurous spirit and spontaneity, last Saturday when the usual conversation commenced, one of us (I really don't remember who) said, "I wish we could go to the zoo." And then we did it. Seriously. We went online, renewed our San Diego Zoo passes, got in a car, and drove 90 minutes to the zoo. AT THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT.

I could pass out I'm so proud of us.

Not only did we do something fun, we spent money on it, and we actually went more than 10 minutes away from our house. As a bonus, Matt's sister and her boyfriend, who live in SD, were free and were able to meet up and spend the day at the zoo with us.

So now I'm feeling all spunky. I'm pumped and ready to do something fun every weekend. Stop laughing, this is happening and it's real. I will force my husband into a chair and refuse to let him say, "Maybe. We can think about it." I will not let him get up until he has conceded to fun, damn it.

I guess I'll have to do it tonight, because it's already Thursday.

Without further ado, a few photographs from our Zoo Adventure.