Happy New Year to all souls reading this!  It is my sincerest hope you and your loved ones experience joy, love and happiness throughout the course of the year.  As we move into a new year, we can take the time to evaluate the past and look forward to the future with a negative or positive mindset.  Live for the positive.  Live in the present as much as you can, the moment.  Too often, we think and think and think about the future (I am very guilty of this; as well as dwelling on the past...) and simply forget how to love the moment we are in.

Originally, this year was set to begin with a blog about religion, but as I was flipping through photographs from 2018, I came upon the one shown above.  I can't help but smile every time I look at it.  Those two little girls hold my heart.  We never fail to have a good time when we are hanging out at home in a fort which they constructed out of blankets, sheets, towels and kitchen chairs, or when we are trekking on trails high in the Sierra Nevada.  

It wasn't long ago that I thought children weren't important to me.  As a college aged young man and summer swim coach, I would often think about the future and children.  Spending every summer day coaching and teaching children to swim formed an opinion in my mind that I would never want to deal with these atomic balls of energy on a daily basis.  No.  I liked my quiet time, vacations and disposable income how it was.  The same thoughts occupied my thoughts as season passes at Heavenly Ski Resort in South Lake Tahoe were renewed year after year.  

And then, things changed.

They changed in a way that changed me.  

I have two daughters.  Those daughters make me smile.  They make me laugh.  The love I have for them resonates on a level deeper than my love of the High Sierra or my time alone on any mountain I climb.  They are quite simply wonderful.  

As they were babies, I wanted them to grow quickly.  I wanted to hear them talk, see them walk and listen to them daydream like only a child can do.  I look back at those wishes and smile.  I don't regret the wishes.  I love the age they are at now.  No more diapers, midnight feeding and turning my home into a fortress akin to a Fort Knox.  I love how they are self sufficient and how we can dialogue about just about anything.  I love asking them about their dreams and thoughts.  I love watching them hold their cameras as we venture all around the Sierra.  I love hearing their incessant chatter at bedtime and listening to them sneak into each others rooms to come up with whatever deviant little plan they are conspiring on.  They always make me smile.

This summer, a very close buddy of mine decided to take our daughters (he has two as well, but one still isn't quite ready to lace up her boots and wander) into the wild of the Sierra just outside of Kirkwood, CA.  We packed up his Toyota Tundra on a sweltering morning in July with all our packs and set out east on highway 50.  

The sounds from the back of the truck were a flashback to youth and trips in the back of my folks station wagons.  The shrieking of voices excited about an adventure while singing Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer" as only a kid can do.  Who are we kidding though?  Jesse and I joined right in and sang with them.  We sang that song over and over and over.  We sang as the miles melted away and we turned the truck onto highway 88 heading toward Hope Valley.  We sang as the truck roared along past Luther Past and into the Aspen lined roads of the high sierra.  We sang as we pulled into Kirkwood Ski Resort for cheeseburgers and Gatorade.

After our hunger had been sated, we once again hopped into the truck and drove the 10 minutes to the trailhead for Lake Margaret.  The kids were using their microfiber cloths to remove dust and film off the fixed lenses of their cameras (a Christmas present from dad that previous December).  They were happy and their voices soothed my soul as they laced up their boots and strapped their sleeping pads to their packs.  

With our packs on our backs and cameras in our hands, the dads gave the order to "hit the trail!".  Off we went with discussions about which animals leave the biggest scat being the subject of the first 30 minutes.  The weather was warm at 8,000 feet above sea level and my Keens felt perfect on my feet as I watched my girls clicking their shutters and showing each other and me, the images.  It was sublime.  There was no stress.  No worry about summiting a peak or traversing a tricky mountainside scree slide.  Nope.  Just a great trail and lots of laughs.  The miles melted into that magnificent Sierra afternoon.  Blue skies and Stellars Jays.  Incense Cedars and Ponderosa Pines.  As my fingers dance about the keyboard, the smile on my face returns.  How I love those images in my mind of that trip.  

Hiking with my "Hiking Family" brings me such happiness, and hiking with my daughters, does the same.  Nothing else matters in that instance.  Not work, budget stress, financial statements, economic trends and GDP.  Only the laughter that echoes atop the granite peaks as I watched my best friend pull his kid out of a stream that she leaned to far over the bank on.  Hearing the squeals of excitement as the three kids plunge into an Alpine Lake for the first time as the chilling nature of the water freezes them instantly.  Watching them venture off up a nearby mountain to explore with a few other kids they met at the lake.  Jesse and I sit by the water, basking in the warm afternoon and smile as we wonder what discussion they are having as they pull themselves up the side of the mountain on Manzanita branches and hand holds in the exposed granite.

These are the memories that I hold dear.  These are times I am so thankful for those two little girls.  Thankfulness.  They may be growing and one day, I will bid them luck on whatever journey their souls are destined to take, but I will cherish these videos that play inside my cerebral cortex.  I am thankful for the light and love they have brought to my life.  I look forward to the adventures we will share on trails and everywhere else as we trod into the new year full of hope and light.  

There is never a day that we walk on this planet, that thankfulness should be ignored.  That is my hope for all who read this.  This month, I hope that this blog encourages each of you to look back and find one thing you can be thankful for everyday.  I am thankful for so many things and will continue to add things to my list.  Thankfulness for this life and for the treasures found in it.  Thankfulness for past lives and lessons learned as well as lives to come and more to learn.  

I wish you all happiness, love, light, peace and wonder as we venture headlong into 2019.  May your journeys be safe, may your mind be open and may you have room in your heart for new adventure.  Be thankful, be grateful, be wild, stay wild, stay in the moment and laugh.  

Now, get outside and create an adventure!

"Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures, kill nothing but time..."

Namaste, friends, and may the love, light and peace of the New Year radiate in your soul...