Adventure is Out There!

I hope all of you have seen the movie Up.

If not, it would be beneficial for you to go watch it right now and then come back. :)

I love Up, and I love the little messages within it. My favorite is "Adventure is out there!" I love this so much, because it's true! Everyone always wants to go on an adventure, but they never seek it out. This little phrase implies that YOU need to go find an adventure! It's 'out there,' just waiting for you!

I've decided that this should be my new motto when I am confronted with something new. I should go for it! I mean, you only live life once, right? Right. I think if we try and do everything that we can, we won't regret it. One of my biggest adventure this far in my life is that I attended Brigham Young University-Hawaii for a semester. Yeah, I lived in Hawaii. Pretty much it was one of the hardest things I've ever done... being away from my family for 3 months (and a week), being in a TOTALLY unfamiliar place, and having none of my close friends to confide in person. I struggled, and I am not afraid to admit that. However, now that I look back on it, I loved every day I was in Hawaii. I loved the weather, I loved the people, I loved saying aloha to everyone,I loved the adventure! I'm definitely going back to visit one day!

Another adventure that I decided to go on is snowboarding. Now, let me give you a background of my life on a snowy mountain. I did ski school 3 times, and each time I skied. Each time I skied I almost killed myself. Result? Never ski again. So, my snowy mountain experience consists of that and sledding. So what inspired me to try snowboarding, you may ask? I'll be straight-up honest with you. First off, a cute guy was involved. Definitely a plus. And that's pretty much most of my reasoning. :) My brothers snowboard and I've thought before that it might be fun to learn, but I've never really done anything about it. So when this attractive guy (yes, he's a double-take) asks if I want to go and he'll teach me, of course I'm going to say yes!

Well, that day was today. I was scared. I was nervous. And I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. However, no worries. I made it to the resort, and I made it to the bunny hill... where I fell, and fell, and fell.....and fell. After many unsuccessful attempts to remain standing for longer than 3 seconds, my teacher asked me if I wanted to get on the lift and just go for it. "No. I don't actually. Have you seen how well, or in my case, horrible I've been on this teeny tiny hill?" Of course, that didn't work so I found myself on a lift going up the mountain. It's safe to assume that I almost threw-up. I started to learn on this bigger, yet still beginner, mountain and I could not stay standing. However, I'm a little prideful and I wasn't just going to sit there and complain that I couldn't do it.

Once we got on the bigger, yet still beginner, hill I realized that it was a lot easier to stay standing once I got there. This does not mean that I did not fall, because, trust me, I can feel every single fall that happened... and there was a lot. We started this craziness around 9:30 in the morning, and I worked my butt off trying to stay standing so that this guy wouldn't think I was an idiot, until 4 in the afternoon. Can you say long day? I. Am. Exhausted. And sore. I'm scared for the next couple days because I will definitely be feelin' it. Overall, I think I did alright, and by the end I wasn't falling nearly as much. But don't you fret, I still got my epic biff in at the very end. As we were heading back, I fell asleep and then we went to Wendy's. After I was dropped off I thought back on the whole day.

It was worth it.

It was worth every fall, every face-plant, every belly-flop, every embarrassing moment, every person I ran into, every fence I ran into, and every single sore part in my body for the next few days. It was worth it.

Although I cringe at how I will feel in the morning, I would definitely do it again. In fact, I plan on going again because I really enjoyed myself (and not just because of the guy). It was so much fun to learn something new, and I consider it an accomplished adventure.

Life is full of adventures and we can't always sit around worrying what might happen if we take one on. Just go for it, and you'll never regret it.