Sometimes I think of giving up.

Perhaps it is a day where I’ve failed. I’m frustrated with my kids and yelling. The kids have reacted equally, and emotions spin around like an F5 tornado threatening the small towns that make up the sinews of our family.

Perhaps it is a day that everything has gone wrong. Our snacks ran out. Our dog threw up all over the back of the car. For some reason we couldn’t climb. Our shoes hurt. We felt sick.

A lot of times it is before we ever start. Kids up all night, tired parents. Ezzie threw up at three a.m. but seems fine now. Perhaps we really should just stay home and watch TV, right?

It is times like these that I stop and wonder, “Why do we even bother?” It is an important question, after all.

We are what I would call ‘normal’. We are not those type A parents who are driven from the moment we get out of bed. Our kids are normal. They disobey, they throw fits, and they light up our days with their smiles and awakening perspectives. We were not the people waiting breathlessly to have kids. They sort of happened to us. (They are the best interruption that has ever come along.)

One day we stopped and asked ourselves a question: ‘Would we want our kids to grow up to have lives just like ours?’

The answer was silence. Then remorse. I hate hypocrisy.

Our marriage is built on two things: a mutual love for the Creator of the world, and a love for adventure. Somewhere in the adventure of having kids, we lost both. We were falling out of love. We were still best friends, but there was no passion.

Around then my wife had what turned out to be a great idea: she wanted to start climbing again. Restarting climbing after having two children is something I hope to never have to do personally. It restarted some life and passion in our marriage. This was a beginning, but it was only the first step on a journey.

Two years later we were faced with another crisis. You see, we had learned to enjoy each other again as a couple, but we endured as a family. And when a family is your life, we were enduring life. Something had to change.

This blog is ultimately the product of an ongoing love story and journey. Between God, two parents and three kids. A love for each other and what the Creator made.

So, why do we bother? We bother because we want to live an adventure together. We want to play together. We want to live life and grow together. And we are willing to fail most of the time for the times of sweet sweet success.

Alyssa and I will do many projects together in our lifetime, but this one is the biggest and most meaningful: The Kid Project.