Jonah and his sticks. A few days ago I came across a photo in my archives of Jonah carrying a stick around before his 2nd birthday on a cabin camping vacation we took. It made me smile because then I didn’t know how much sticks would become a part of his life and childhood. When we were launching in to fulltime travel and purging our home, we started getting rid of things. One of the last things to go was basket of toys up on top of our fridge known at “toy jail”. It just so happened most of the toys up there could be used as a weapon (nerf, light sabers, etc) lol. One day, when the house was almost entirely packed, Jonah, in all his 4 year old cuteness, stomped in to the kitchen and declared “YOU TOOK ALL MY WEAPONS!” while stomping his foot and fists. It hadn’t even occurred to us how very important they were to him until that moment.

Enter sticks.

The best weapon. The free weapon. The readily available everywhere you look when you live in campgrounds weapon. The weapon you don’t have to ask for.

I have an entire folder of photos of Jonah with sticks. Photos I never intentionally took because he had a stick, he just always had one. An accidental collection of sorts. As a family we joke about how that boy could find a stick in an empty parking lot with no trees and it’s so true! As Jude says “Jonah doesn’t find sticks, sticks find Jonah”. Kid has had multiple sticks in 48 states now.

Yes, Jonah is holding a knife in that photo. He has been asking for a pocket knife for 5 years. Today we decided to let him use one, with supervision, but it is not his to keep. Baby steps to earn trust and we will see how it goes. Oh, and here are the first photos from 2014….

Crocs and that same cute little green jacket would later become Zachary’s fulltime travel uniform. Also from that same camping trip…