“Don’t Die with Dreams,

Make Memories”- Author Unknown!

The goal is to Die with Memories not Dreams

Don’t Die with Dreams, Make Memories is our motto.  As we sat down to dinner and drinks last Wednesday night with our friends. After a rather cold night of Bocce Ball. The discussion quickly turned to traveling to warmer places. As that discussion then leads to who had traveled where and who wanted to go so on and so on. Pop says

A Cold Night at Murphysboro Bocce Coliseum

“We just added the Florida Keys to our Bucket List today!” (Of course, I a laugh out loud at this, since on our 2^nd date Pop (at that time he was still just Jay) states that he is going to take me to the Florida Keys. Where we are gonna sit on the beach each day and drink umbrella drinks. See  on date 2 he had already realized how much I hated to be cold.. since that  said date was in January, and we have not been to the keys as of yet, so it technically it was the very first thing on our bucket list but hey I have gotten off track here)

One of them says really you already have a Bucket List? We are not that Old…. It made me think really, I guess in a way I thought everyone had a bucket list (See Ours Here).

Cruise to Cozumel with the Girls-Bucket List Trip

As the night wore on I explained why I thought a Bucket list was so important. Everybody from the time you are a little child has dreams. Dreams of places far away that they want to visit. If you ask the age-old questions “if you could go anywhere where would it be?” almost everyone has an answer whether it is realistic or not they have an answer.  But most of them never go to that place. Why? Well here is my thought on this. If you never make it real that you want to go somewhere. You will never start to plan for it, save for it, or really even start to talk about it.

SJ Bucket List trip to the Fountain of Youth

That is why you need a Bucket list, you need to write down all the places you want to go. It can be as little as the town 40 miles away,  backpacking across Europe,  hiking through Yellowstone,  having umbrella drinks in the Florida Keys (see what I did there). Writing them down makes them more than just a dream someday.  You now have goals that you want to reach. When we have a goal to work towards we start to slowly make a plan on how to reach that goal, then how to save for that goal and before you know it you are picking a date and making reservations.

The Blonds Bucket List trip to New Orleans

Now I know what you are going to say if the Florida Keys were the first thing on our Bucket List why haven’t we crossed it off yet. Well, you see we have a very large Bucket List. Then we watch way too much of the Travel Channel and that list keeps growing. All of the sudden the things we first thought about what we must do are now different and that is ok also. I hope we never mark everything off our list. Our hope is with each new stop on our adventure called life we add five more places that we want to do.

Memories

I (Loli) was very blessed as a child both of my parents loved to travel. So every year we would take at least one mini vacation 4 or 5 days and every 3 to 4 years we would take a long vacation. I have been to the West Coast, Gulf Coast, and the East Coast.  We watch my Parents now (they live next door) on long cold winter nights when they can’t get out anymore sit and look through their vacation photo albums and discuss all of the memories that they made with us kids.

When you are young and raising your children you think you have all the time in the world. You will have time to show them new things, New Places, take them on new adventures spend quality time with them. Well before you know it, it is High School Graduation. Then you realize you haven’t even begun to show them everything you wanted to. Several years ago it hit me Kristin is leaving soon where has the time gone. So guess what we Planned that trip to Disney World that we didn’t think we could afford.

Disney World with the Kids

Disney World

Then we bought a camper. Even though we used it mostly to just go to Murphysboro Lake, we were spending time together. We were making memories.

Camping Murphysboro Lake

Family Time at Murphysboro Lake

We camped at Holiday World, took a really fun trip to almost Kansas (read about that trip here..). You know what they were not always glamorous or far away but we all have fond memories of each of them.

Mother-In-Law Out after the exciting trip to Almost Kansas

Killing Time in Almost Kansas

How we entertained Ourselves in Almost Kansas

That’s is our goal in life, that when (we) Loli and Pop reach our final days here on earth that we have a heart full of Memories not just Dreams.  You just never know what we will be adding to our Bucket List and where our Next Stop will Be? What will you add to your Bucket List?