Scratch One Off The Bucket List...

My Bucket List has all kinds of random things on it...things like:

- Enjoy a perfect Round 1 NCAA Tournament bracket.

- Camp at Yellowstone.

- Watch a basketball game at Assembly Hall at Indiana University.

- Wander Grand Staircase- Escalante National Monument.

- Cruise on a sailboat around Manhattan.

- Horse pack The Outlaw Trail and visit Robbers Roost.

- Drive the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Canada 

- Live one year abroad.

"Become a Zoo member," doesn't quite have the same ring to it as the above but it's always been a pretty big deal to me.  Today we checked it off the list.  This morning we purchased memberships with the Detroit Zoological Society, and I nearly burst with excitement.  Guess who can go to the zoo now whenever he wants, and never drop another dime walking through the gates?  Me, that's who.  Guess who gets to wander in through their own entrance?  Us.  Guess who has a really cool little ID card with a beaver on the front?  June and I, that's who!

Zo's a big zoo fan...naturally, and she could barely contain herself too.  It was a big day for this family! I dunno how you spent your Easter Saturday, but we spent ours with 14, 000 other zoo fans who poured into that awesome little treasure just off of the 696 on the very edge of Royal Oak, to enjoy some sun, and smell some penguin poop.

Can't stop smiling.





I want Zo and Mags to grow up in magical places, and to visit them with such frequency that the magic sticks to their skin like sweat.  For $89 USD we gave our daughters a chance to find a natural wonder around every corner, every weekend if they choose.  What did you do with your summer Saturdays growing up?  These girls are gonna hang out with polar bears and peacocks.  Not a bad way to foster something special, I think. Of course...it might be as much for Dad as it is for daughters.





We keep telling ourselves that what our children ingest on a regular basis, what influences these earliest of memories are the the very things that matter the most.  We try to remind ourselves that in addition to humility and kindness and perspective and intelligence, we want to instill magic, and imagination, and a capacity for wonder that you can only harvest if you took the time to plant the seeds.  It's important...wildly important, and it's something that we talk about a lot.  You can't imagine what you've never seen, and you can't become what you can't comprehend.  Instilling wonder probably ranks pretty low on a lot of parents lists of priorities.  Not in this house.  At this particular address it's what we feed them.