5 years, 4 months.

Dear Jack,

I suppose it’s safe to say a new weekly ritual is in full swing. This makes the 3rd weekend in a row where you and I have gone exploring in the surrounding neighborhoods, using a creek that begins in our backyard
as our road.

Before Mommy left the house to get her “pre-going into labor haircut” and then to Kroger to buy groceries, she smiled and told me, “Be safe. Don’t be dangerous out there.”

I smiled back and promised her,

“Oh, we’ll definitely be dangerous- we just won’t get hurt.”

About 20 minutes later as you and I were about to turn out of our neighborhood in my Honda Element, I asked you, “Jack, where you want to explore today?”

We decided to pick up where we left off last week, this time following the creek in the opposite direction. You quickly found the wooden plank you discovered and left behind on Sunday, deciding to take it with us for today’s entire journey.

The plank served three purposes:

#1. A shovel to help you make “chocolate milk” in the creek.

#2. A portable table to help you see your instantly growing rock collection.

#3. A bridge to help you get across the creek when you didn’t feel like jumping.

The further down the creek we trekked, the more exciting and potentially dangerous things became.

You had to make your way across the rocks and the water of the creek by depending on half-rotted boards that were already placed there by other adventurers.

And then when we finally came across a more legitimate bridge, even it was crooked; like something from a cartoon movie.

Even as I’m telling you this now, it sounds like some kind of weird dream we both experienced.

When we go exploring together, we never really know what surprises await us. Well, fate would have it that we just happened to be aligned with these two tunnels leading up to the bank of a pond…

So we crawled through one. Once on the other side, you found an old pumpkin there in the water. I’m not sure why, since this is March, not November.

After that, we clumsily journeyed back to the street and found my car; you were exhausted by that point. But we still had about 45 minutes before Mommy would be home, so I talked you to in to letting me take you on a drive.

You and I have wondered for over a year now, since we moved to Spring Hill, about that that big blue water tower we had been seeing in the distance.

So we checked it out.

We were high up enough where we could even see our own neighborhood and church.

I’m glad you like exploring as much as I do. I suppose it’s becoming a mutual hobby for us.

And though we were slightly dangerous the whole time, we came back home to Mommy without any injuries.

Love,

Daddy