Jenn & Chris – Page 20 – Mom Dad CuppaKids

Hitting a Milestone with a Milestone

by Jenn & Chris on September 10, 2014

Dad Says…

I think the 10^th anniversary is paper, or something. Everyone will attest I don’t really prescribe to the theory of established celebrations, and this anniversary is no exception. We haven’t gotten this far in marriage playing by the rules of others; in fact we live by a few expectations. Don’t play games, unless you’re playing games. Have fun. Laugh more.

So, instead of a date-night with dinner out and a pedestrian RomCom, we planned to travel off North America to celebrate J’s 40^th and our 10^th. Days of air travel would culminate in Tanzania, which I actually had to look up on a map, sad to say. We would head up the tallest mountain on a CONTINENT, Mount Kilimanjaro. This was not something we do by ourselves; we aligned with Intrepid Travel, whose reputation is making travel dreams come true for people since 1989. Established, which was calming, since I had to Google the language spoken and capital city.

I like a good trip, and have seen a decent part of the world. But I was extra excited about this one. I am not a ‘bucket lister,’ but I do believe in the one life to live theory and I think this is a great opportunity to experience something different.

Sunrise over Africa? What a way to start.

Mom Says…

We are terrible at celebrating our anniversary on the day we got married.

Healthy Living

Are you IN your (Comfort) Zone? Or OUT?

by Jenn & Chris on September 9, 2014

Mom Says…

A while back, the word comfort (or any variation of that word, see: comfortable) somehow became a swear word to me. In my head, comfort was equitable to not living life to its fullest, to mailing it in, to being happy with status quo. The barometer of our marriage was often determined by the word comfortable. If the hubs heard that word, he knew I was getting fidgety.

I couldn’t imagine that a Groundhog Day style of the same routine was the best way to live the only life we have. I had warned about the swear word but in truth it wasn’t really a reflection on our relationship. We are a good team. It wasn’t fair holding our marriage accountable for what I need, so I started pushing myself to go after things that took me out of my comfort zone in order to feed that need for exploration and adventure.

For the record, I absolutely HATE the squirmy icky feeling of delving into something new. But what I discovered was that by pushing through uncomfortable, I have succeeded to some degree at whatever I have tried. Sometimes the accomplishment is simply the attempt, not necessarily doing well by it. But more times than not, I discovered trying something new has actually brought with it experiences and rewards that I never knew would be possible had I not given it a try in the first place.

This is something I want our kids to learn, and hopefully model as they grow up. It is better to try something new that be paralyzed by the fear of it. So here we are: New blog, a journey to a whole new kind of lifestyle (Heathy, Clean Living, Gluten Free), and a whole new path out of Comfort.

Dad Says…

There is an opposite side of the coin here; without a comfort zone, you cannot appreciate exiting it. I believe that you must take time to appreciate everything you have if you are to strive beyond it.

I found an goofy shirt with a cartoon of a guy sitting around a fire with a cup, captioned ‘good life’. I think that sums it up pretty well; you have no idea what he did during the day; running rapids, parasailing, who knows what adventures have filled his tank.

What you do know is he is taking the time to reflect on them, absorb them, and assimilate them into his ‘happy place’. Everyone has a happy place; its where you go when planking…it’s that action where you take all the good stuff and make a leaf pile of it and roll around in it and look at the sky and wonder ‘what’s next?’ while thinking “holy crap, I can’t believe that branch held us 8 kids” or “wow, that home made bike jump was WAY higher than I thought, hope this stops bleeding before mom sees…”

I’m just saying it is important to reflect back on your accomplishments and wrap up in them like a snuggie and M.A.S.H rerun before running off on your next adventure, or else why are you doing them in the first place?

HOW ABOUT YOU? Where do you like LIVING?

Travel

Climbing Kilimanjaro – My Date with Destiny

by Jenn & Chris on August 6, 2014

My business has already been to the top. Now it was my turn.

The year was 2011 and I had no idea my date with destiny was about to begin.

Having started my business less than a year before, I was still trying to figure out the definition of what that business looked like. I felt lost. I was catering to clients I wasn’t passionate about because they had the money. It didn’t resonate with me AT ALL, and I felt compromised in my value system.

So what does one do when they need to figure out their business? Most would probably go back to honing their audience or creating a tighter business plan.

Me? I went to a psychic.

My friend Laurel would laugh if you called her a psychic but she is most definitely intuitive and gets messages that tend to be wickedly accurate to pass on to you. We had met quite a few times but it wasn’t until a fated coffee date with our friend Susie Parker that I realized how important she would become in my world. We had been talking about the struggles of business and she simply had said:

“When you are working towards something you are passionate about, it will never feel like a war in your heart.”

I had started to cry. Something about that statement felt like an arrow piercing my heart and left me with a nagging need to talk to her more. I set up a Skype call with her to help figure out where I needed to get my business in order. We set forth on a visualization of where I saw myself in 5 years. As I closed my eyes, I assumed it was going to be business oriented, developing a new digital product or something and being able to travel the globe with my family (If you dream it, it will come right?).

Instead, as I closed my eyes, I saw Africa. In all its glory.

Everything about the visualization took place in a school yard in Africa. I could hear the children playing, I could see my kids in the school yard laughing with them, I could touch the single level turquoise building that housed the classrooms, and I could reach out to the man who was sitting beside me on a picnic table in the yard. It was so vivid and felt so right.

Where exactly this was, I couldn’t tell you but I can share that I felt at peace, quiet and satisfied with something we had accomplished in being there. As I woke up from the visualization, we talked about what I saw. Immediately I felt relief, I felt a sense of purpose and I felt like I had a date with Africa in the not so distant future. I remember telling Laurel that I felt like it wasn’t 5 yrs away but sooner. Laurel mentioned that education and Africa would play a role in my life moving forward.

That day would be marked as one that defined a path for me. It changed my business. It helped me focus more on working in ways that would feed my soul and follow my heart to what I am passionate about.

That was 3 years ago. Tomorrow, we are leaving for Tanzania to Climb Mt Kilimanjaro and #LiveLifeIntrepid. Thanks to the amazing people at Intrepid Travel , we are working with them to help raise money for kiliproject.org, a project that helps support educational opportunities for children in Tanzania.

If you would like to support #TeamPowell raising funds on this climb, you can do so by DONATING HERE

The funny thing is, I had forgotten until recently that because of this path to Africa, I sponsored a good friend as she was in need of hitting her goal of raising funds for a MAD Climb to Kili, never in a million years dreaming that a few short years later I would be embarking on a Kili adventure of my own.

We are so looking forward to setting foot on Uruhu Peak and celebrating our milestones.

To following your passion. Who knows what kind of mountain you will get to climb.