Emails like this remind me why I continue to do what I do, even when the days are long and hard.

Hi Matthew,

How are you doing? Our team met this morning to talk about the Executive Off-site Retreat --

I wanted to share something you probably know but I found interesting: This past Sunday night during our "family counsel," I handed everyone notebooks to start writing down their dreams. I've been talking about/prepping them for a couple weeks. I told them they just needed to do 15 for now and share 2. (My 16 year old has ADHD and I didn't think she'd last any longer.) My husband struggled to come up with 5. Scout, my 16 year old quickly wrote 16. (Wow! An over-achiever!)

My 9 year old wrote and shared her 15. I left her writing at the dining room table while I ran to the drug store. I came back and she was still writing. She had 92! Many revolved around getting a dog :) and not a word was spelled correctly. She had "visit Australia", and "visit..." half a dozen other places. She also had "be more responsible", "love God more" and an impressive variety of less tangible dreams.

What amazed me is how easily the youngest came up with her dreams as opposed to the adults who struggled to think of even a few -- kind of sad how that happens to us as we age, isn't it?

Colleen