Hi there, Jen Ryday here, and this is a happy bit. I want to talk about how adventure and exploration

can make us happy. Recently, my son, who is almost 13, went on a field trip with his class to a local

state park. They spent the entire day hiking, climbing on cliffs and rocks, and truly just having

an adventure. It's kind of the type of thing that

kids don't really do much of nowadays. My son came home from this field trip, almost shaking with

excitement. He said, Mom, that was the best field trip ever. We hiked the entire day. We had to cross

over some rivers on some logs, and I didn't even really

fall off. Okay, well, I fell off twice, but I fell off way less than the other people. And we were on

these really tall cliffs. We had to be really careful so we wouldn't fall off. It was awesome.

As a mom, I was really excited to hear his level of enthusiasm for being outdoors.

A second story.

It was 82 degrees today in Wisconsin, so we chose to go to a local beach and have some fun.

We took along two inflatable boats and their oars and paddled around outside of the buoys

because these boats weren't allowed inside the ropes. And later, our boys continued to swim outside of the buoys because these boats weren't allowed inside the ropes.

And later, our boys continued to swim outside of the buoys, having some fun jumping off a tree

and my husband and I were relaxing on the beach. We didn't really worry too much about their safety

because we were kind of trying to relax too. And with six kids, you've got to take every opportunity

you can't, right? Later, our boys came up and said, we should go to that beach again.

That was so much fun.

We found a glass bottle and a coconut shell and this piece of plastic.

And my husband said, where did you find that?

And they said, oh, right where were you swimming.

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