Have you ever noticed that it takes a lot of work to make your dreams come true? Either a lot of work or luck. But usually, it takes most people a lot of work. Recently, Rob acquired another orthodontic practice in the area. A competitor moved out of state and sold his practice so Rob bought it. It’s a huge step to making his own dreams come true. But it hasn’t been easy. It’s been a lot of work. And it will continue to take a lot of work.

We also have a dream of taking the family to Hawaii. Luckily, Rob’s sister lives there so her being there is propelling us to try to get there sooner rather than later. But we’ve been saving up money here and there in our “vacation” jar to help off set the costs of flying a family of 6 (plus a baby) out there. So even the dream of vacation and travel takes work.

When I was younger, my dream was to get a good education and become a mom. I never really pictured it any certain way or had major expectations about it (good thing, too!!), but it was always my dream to have a family and raise kids.

Wow…that one is way more work than I ever imagined it would be.

The funny thing about dreams is that when I am living my dreams, it’s so easy to be caught up in the day to day work of keeping the dream alive that I forget I am even living my dream. Even this morning, I must have awaken on the wrong side of the bed because I got nit-picky about my life and how lots of things aren’t just right or just so. That just wasn’t a good way to start the day.

Luckily, I was able to drop my kids off at a field day activity. I came home and ate some lunch while the baby is napping. I got on the computer to write (something totally different…), and Photo Booth was open. It’s a program on our computer that takes pictures from the computer camera. My kids were messing around on it…again. So I looked at what they came up with today. It’s fun to see their creativity. Then I continued to look, and I was taken back in time. And it gave me the dose of perspective that I needed today.

Gotcha! Going, going, gone!

This was us 6 years ago! Crazy!

So innocently sweet.

These kids are worth it. Maybe I do have other dreams to live and follow–if I could ever have the time to even figure out what they are. But this dream that I’m living right now is a pretty cool dream. I have a really great husband and 5 wonderful kids to share this dream with. It’s an adventure in and of itself. And part of the adventure is watching these kids grow, discover themselves, and figure out their own dreams that they want to live.

A couple of years ago, I created this video. Rob’s best friend from high school had just completed a video of his epic almost 2 year adventure of traveling the world with his girlfriend. And I made this to remind the both of us that even if we aren’t traveling the world, we are doing something that makes a world of difference to this little family of ours. Enjoy the show!