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Choose the Adventure

Written by

Kevin Sandlin

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Always choose the adventure.

That’s a rule for me. Not that every decision has an adventure attached, but many do. When adventure is an option, choose the adventure.

✔️ 2001 – I chose the adventure of building a startup (CWNP) from $250. 13 years later, we were acquired by a P/E firm, and CWNP thrives today.
✔️ 2005 – my wife and I chose the adventure of international adoption. We traveled to and lived in Kazakhstan for 56 days, and returned with our “Crazy Kazakh Kids”, one of which, my daughter, got married last week. Keep reading!
✔️ 2014 – my wife chose the adventure of starting her own custom cookie business. Now she has dozens of repeat customers all over Atlanta.
✔️ 2018 – our yard in Roswell, GA, was covered in ankle deep English Ivy. Lots of ways to get rid of it, but we chose to adopt goats for 2 weeks.
✔️ 2021 – I chose the adventure of buying a local shooting range and gun store. Talk about a learning experience!!
✔️ 2025 – my daughter chose to have a small wedding on the side of a mountain in Woodland Park, Colorado.

That is today’s “adventure” lesson. Always choose the adventure.

Instead of a “normal” north Georgia wedding, we invited family and close friends for a very small wedding on a Thursday afternoon in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

“Normal” is a setting on the dryer.

My wife – Mother of the Bride and daughter’s wedding coordinator – tracked EVERYTHING in Google Docs and Google Keep, down to what color table cloths would be used for the rehearsal dinner vs. the wedding reception, down to who would press “Play” on the reception music playlist, down to what was in every single box (numbered, of course) in the back of my car.

She even made a visual time guide for the entire time guests would be there, so everyone knew exactly where they should be and when they should be there.

We asked a fraternity brother (and friend of 40 years!) to officiate the ceremony. He and his bride traveled across the country so he could marry my baby girl, who he has known for 20 years. He was ok, until he saw my face as i walked my baby girl up the aisle and he tried to ask, “Who gives this Woman to be married to this Man?”

We both lost it. Of course, I had already been nuked by my “first look” at my daughter, the bride-to-be. I literally could not speak.

We packed my Sequoia like the Beverly Hillbillies full of table cloths, signage, food prep, margarita glasses, silverware, custom napkins, pre-printed wedding programs, dresses and tuxedos, and drove 27 hours there and 27 hours back to hand deliver this wedding.

It was an adventure from beginning to end, including my wife’s secret, ingenious idea to include our 120lb yellow lab at the reception by having him take a bite out of the cake. The look on my daughter’s face when she saw that little touch was priceless.

Life is short. Life can be boring and monotonous as hell. When you have the opportunity, choose the adventure. You will never, ever regret it.

Always choose the adventure.

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