Tip # 3 For Being A Fun Dad: Go On An Adventure!

Want to be a fun Dad? Go on an adventure! Now, hold on a second. I know, I know. You're busy. Funds are tight. Great news! Taking your kid on an adventure doesn't have to be involved or costly. You don't have to go camping (what? no hot water?) or whitewater rafting (though that would be fun some day). In fact, you can have an adventure tomorrow. My son and I have at least two adventures a week. My secret? The "adventure way"! Pictured above, the adventure way is really nothing more than an alternate route to his school. It adds no more than 5 minutes to our commute. The route is deliciously littered with potholes that rattle the car and our teeth (much to the Boy's delight). My son has deemed it suitable for "boys only" (certainly too rugged for Mommy). This week, we discovered that the adventure way is prone to flooding when it rains. We splashed through the muddy puddles at high speed (at least 20 mph) as my son belly laughed the way six-year-olds do. We even did a few U-turns to plow through them again! That morning, I did have mud dripping off every exterior surface of my car and didn't have as much time to get organized for my day at work, but I did (hopefully) make a memory with my son.


Of course, you don't have to limit yourself to an "adventure way". Get creative! What does your kid like? My son loves carwashes and we have gone on many adventures looking for new carwashes to explore. Since he's been able to talk, I think we've covered every carwash in a 20-mile radius of our house. We passed by a carwash recently, months after having gone there, and the Boy said, "There's the adventure carwash"! He remembered that the carwash also filled up our gas tank before the wash and that I had bought him some cookies. He even remembered spilling the cookies on the ground and that we had fun feeding them to the birds. We've also had adventures driving around the airport watching the planes roar overhead. So, Dads, don't wait for the day you have the funds or until you have enough vacation time built up to go camping. Take your kid on an adventure today!