Move, Explore & Grow Together:We inspire families to go on more adventures to feed our souls and grow together
Hi there! Welcome to the Grow Adventures community!
I’m Leeann, the wanderlust, nature loving, creative mama behind this blog. I met my mountain sports enthusiast hubby, Victor, while traveling through the Peruvian Amazon rainforest over a decade ago.
Through years of adventures living between California and Spain, our family has grown to include two little explorers, Lana and Kilian.
Though Victor and I no longer train like crazy to win adventure raids or successfully summit 4,000 meter peaks like Mont Blanc, we continue to travel and explore as a family. We are constantly on the hunt to find creative ways to keep ourselves and our children entertained, engaged, and exposed to different environments that challenge the mind and body in new ways.
As parents of two little ones, we understand the challenge of raising happy, healthy kids. We want to help them take care of their bodies by eating well and being active, but also nurture their mind and growth by building their emotional intelligence, creativity, confidence and kindness. Some days are rewarding, and some can be downright exhausting.
What we have found works best is not simply organizing activities for your kids, but enjoying adventures with them.
With Grow Adventures, we inspire families to go on more adventures to feed our souls and grow together – whether that be observing the beauty and power of nature while outdoors, immersing yourself in the culture of a new city, getting lost in an exciting world of a storybook, being moved by a colorful creation, or while connecting with our communities and giving back.
The magic of discovering and learning together as a family, no matter how big or small the adventure, is the greatest gift we can offer our children.
We’re here to inspire you with stories, ideas, and resources for your next great family adventure.
Want to connect? Feel free to connect with us on social media, chat with us on the website, or send us email at hello@growadventures.co at anytime to say hello and introduce yourself – we love hearing from all of you!
Let us know what you want to learn more about, what tools and resources you wish we offered but don’t (yet!), and how we can better help you enjoy more family adventures together.
Want to learn more about us and what we’re passionate about? We open up and tell you all about it below!
More About Us
We are so excited to share stories, tips and resources to help you Move more, Explore more, and Grow together as a family. We hope to inspire you and show you it’s absolutely possible to nurture curious, adventurous kids with big hearts, AND enjoy the journey.
And of course, before you get started on your next great adventure, you may have some questions…
What does Grow Adventures mean?
Great question! When we say “adventure”, we literally mean anything with an element of the unknown, where you are embarking on a journey in which you see, learn and experience something new.
When we thought about all the kinds of adventures we’ve embarked on, we realized the thread that linked them altogether was how much we’ve learned and grown together as a family. It was only natural that we called our blog, Grow Adventures!
With Grow Adventures, we hope to inspire you to seek adventures that challenge and grow the mind, heart and body – learning, creating and exploring, in-and-outdoors.
How do we try adventurous new activities while still ensuring the safety of our children?
Talk about it early and often. We start talking to our children about something new we’ll do, often weeks in advance. We suggest this tactic for everything – even if it’s that mommy will be going on a business trip or a vaccine they’ll be getting for an upcoming trip. Talking about it early, and often, gives them the opportunity to absorb information over multiple conversations, to think it over, and allow us to cover any questions and address any fears or concerns they have. We also use the opportunity to quiz them – this reinforces their learning and builds their confidence. When the day comes, it doesn’t seem so scary or unknown.
Teach them how to spot potential dangers and how to protect themselves. We often remember to focus on the fun and exciting parts, but it’s equally important to show you trust they are capable of not just doing the activity, but that they also know how to stay safe. To help them build self-confidence and independence, we encourage you to discuss what that means in your family and for your children for each activity. Just as you wouldn’t allow a toddler to cross the street on their own, the same applies for new adventures you embark on. For example with hiking, every trail is different – some could have different kinds of terrain, some could have steeper areas, some may involve scrambling. What are your family rules and make sure everyone is clear on what they are.
When in doubt, we highly recommend you try it out with more experienced families and professionals first.
Though we share many tips here on Grow Adventures, if you are new to certain activities, we highly recommend you try it out with more experienced families and professionals first. If you want to climb, try a climbing gym to get acquainted with the equipment and what it’s like on a wall. Try organized activities where you can meet other like-minded families. Trust us – nothing beats hiking with other children (potential new friends!) to keep them occupied.
We have a lot of experience with adventurous activities and being fully prepared for them ourselves. For example, when alpine mountaineering or backcountry skiing/splitboarding, we carry avalanche beacons, shovels and mylar thermal blankets (though fortunately we’ve never had to use them!). Victor is also a firefighter so I feel better knowing we have an experienced first aid/rescue professional around.
That being said, remember that although you may have done it before, don’t assume it’s the same with children. Often their body shapes and proportions are different, and they need special equipment. They also have less experience and may not know things that are common sense to you — it’s important that they be fully briefed beforehand (in a child friendly way!), are aware of potential dangers, and are fully supervised during any activity.
Don’t you ever get frustrated and miss adventurous life before having kids?
We’d be lying if we didn’t admit that we still miss our adventures before kids. There are a few things that we won’t be able to do again until they are a bit older, but in the meantime, 1) we’ve learned how to make family adventures more enjoyable 2) and we make sure we still do some activities without them (gasp!).
Most of our family adventures have been modified to ensure the kids can do them too. We like to think of it as a way to introduce and kindle the love for adventure in our kids minds, hearts and bodies. And of course, it’s also training their strength and stamina so they can one day enjoy the same activities we enjoy as adults. What keeps us inspired is seeing through their eyes as they discover something new for the first time, we remember the magic from our own forgotten childhoods.
As mentioned above, we highly encourage you to plan adventures with other families (e.g. camping, hiking, climbing etc) so that the kids can enjoy each other’s company, but also be able to share in supervisory responsibilities. With climbing, you can take turns so that all the kids get a go, and the adults tool! In Borneo, Victor and I both got scuba certified (our kids were 1 and 3 at the time). When we hit the ski resorts, we used to sign up our kids for snow school where they learned to ski and we could enjoy the mountain on our own!
Why is community so important to Grow Adventures? What is your philosophy on connecting with and building community?
When we think about community, we think about it in multiple ways. First, we think about our support network, in which we receive and give support to friends and family. We can never have enough like-minded friends to enjoy outings with so we’re always making new ones (while out shopping, at the park, while flying, etc.) and are still friends with today! We hope that this blog will help us build a larger community where families feel safe exploring and inspired to try new things.
Second, we think about the larger community, the world we live in and the vibrant people living in it. We often get lost in the minutia and non-stop stream of media that is thrown at us on a day to day basis and forget that all over the world, there are thriving communities with their own cultures, dreams, hopes, and fears that we know almost nothing about. It’s easy to forget that people still live in poverty and hunger, that war still exists and robs childhoods, destroys families and whole communities, and that catastrophic disasters still occur (both natural and man-made) but there is something we can do to help – we often don’t know where to start.
We strive to support and give back to both the local communities we live in, as well as the communities we visit and hope to inspire others to join us along on this journey.
When you purchase something from our Grow Adventures shop, you help us give back by supporting these non-profits.
What is living in Spain like?
After living in California and Spain, we’ve decided to call Spain our permanent home for the foreseeable future. We live in a small town called Castalla located in the Alicante province, along the southeast coast of Spain.
Even though I miss the redwoods and lush greenery of my hometown just over the Golden Gate bridge (they have been replaced by palm trees, brush, cactus and pine trees!), we are fortunate to have easy access to the city, beaches and mountains and a great climate with lots of sun. Despite some scorching days in the summer, the temperate weather allows us to spend plenty of time outdoors all year round.
We’ve heard that there is the occasional snow in our area, but we’ve only seen it for one day in the last couple years. To access snow, we usually head for either Sierra Nevada in the south of Spain or to the Pyrenees, in the north of Spain.
Though Yosemite will always have a place in my heart, I am amazed by the beauty of the Pyrenees. There aren’t giant sequoias, half dome or el capitan, but there are beautiful waterfalls, gorgeous canyoning opportunities, exciting via ferratas to climb, lakes to kayak in, and charming little towns and villages to explore, not to mention the incredible food!
We love exploring the beauty of Spain as a family and even more so with other families. We’ve been lucky enough to meet other English speaking families from all over the world who have made their home here in Spain as well, including a few other mixed American-Spanish families from California just like ours! If you’re ever in our area, hit us up – we’d love to meet up!