Ten years ago today, Steve told me he wanted to talk about our future. I was a little nervous. Usually those words can go in a lot of different directions. But within a few minutes, I realized this conversation was something exciting.
Steve had been thinking about what life might look like if we left our jobs, jobs we truly loved and were good at, and took a chance on something completely different. He talked about traveling together, sharing our experiences with others, and building a life centered around adventure, education, and making a difference. At one point, he told me that I had been the backup singer in the band long enough and that it was time for me to be the lead singer.

We talked about how fun it would be to travel together, work together, and spend our days creating something meaningful. We also talked about the uncertainty. We would be leaving stable careers. We didn't know where our money would come from. We weren't in a position to retire. There were plenty of reasons to stay exactly where we were. But for some crazy reason, those things didn't bother us as much as they probably should have.
In fact, the very next morning, I gave my 30-day notice.

And just like that, with a few roadblocks and detours along the way, we began a journey that would eventually become Expeditions in Education.
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Has it always been easy? Absolutely not. There have been moments of uncertainty and worry. I still wonder sometimes how we're going to pay the bills. We don't have sick days. We don't have the safety net that comes with traditional jobs. But what we do have is so much more.

We've traveled the country together. We've worked side by side every day. We've met incredible people. We've built friendships that will last a lifetime. We've connected millions of students and educators with national parks, scientists, and opportunities they may never have experienced otherwise. Most importantly, we've built a life that feels true to who we are.
Today marks ten years of saying yes to adventure, yes to the unknown, and yes to a leap of faith that changed everything. If I could leave you with one piece of encouragement, it would be this: Take the leap. Jump in with both feet. Do something that matters. Be a good human. You never know where that decision might lead. For us, it led to the adventure of a lifetime. Tomorrow we begin Year 11, and I couldn't be more grateful for the journey. Here's to many more years of adventure ahead.

These are photos from those few months before we hit the road the first time.

There was a year when I inherited a 5th grade classroom that had already been through a lot. My students had spent the previous year moving through multiple teachers, substitutes, interruptions, and uncertainty. Many came with behaviors that people noticed before they noticed anything else. Some were angry. Some had shut down. Some had simply learned that school was a place you got through.

And then there was math.

Fifth grade math is no joke. Fractions, decimals, geometry, coordinate planes, volume, measurement, data, problem solving. For many of my students, math meant worksheets, unfinished pages, and another reminder that they were struggling.

I knew I could not teach it from a book alone.

So we turned math into experiences.

We created our own concerts. Students wrote math songs, built beats with pencils and desktops, clapped rhythms, and created performances to help remember concepts. The room was loud. Really loud. But it was the kind of loud where kids were learning without realizing they were learning. Students who usually wanted out of class suddenly wanted extra rehearsal time.

Fractions became bakeries and pizza shops. We designed menus, cut pizzas into slices, worked through equivalent fractions, doubled recipes, divided portions, and argued over who had the bigger piece of cake. I learned quickly that fifth graders will defend mathematical reasoning with great passion when brownies are involved.

Measurement became sewing. I brought in fabric, measuring tapes, rulers, buttons, and patterns. Students measured seams, estimated lengths, planned projects, and discovered that being off by even half an inch mattered. Suddenly precision was important because it was real.

Coordinate planes moved onto the floor. We taped giant grids across the classroom and students became the points. They walked coordinates, built shapes, found vertices, and moved through lessons instead of staring at graph paper.

Volume turned into architecture. We built little houses, stores, towers, and cities from boxes, paper, and recycled materials. Students calculated dimensions, changed measurements, rebuilt designs, and learned quickly that one wrong number changed everything.

One of my favorite projects was opening travel agencies. Students planned dream trips with real budgets. They figured hotel costs, meals, souvenirs, gas, distances, and spending limits. One group planned a huge national park adventure. Another somehow spent half their money on snacks before leaving.

Word problems became skits. If the problem was about shopping, we opened stores. If it was about construction, students became builders. If it involved time, we acted it out.

Math stopped living on worksheets.
It lived in the room.

Looking back now, I realize I was doing more than teaching math. I was trying to rebuild confidence. The student who struggled to sit still became the lead in our concert project. The student everyone worried about became the expert in the bakery. Kids who hated math started asking what we were doing next.

And then came the moment that still follows me.

I was teaching one of those lessons where I had completely committed to the performance. Somehow I ended up standing on a table. I was explaining, gesturing, probably being far more dramatic than necessary, when I lost my balance and fell straight off.

Sprained ankle.
The room went silent.
The same students everyone called difficult stood there completely worried.
I was embarrassed.
They were horrified.
​Eventually we laughed.
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When I think back on that class, I do not remember the tests first. I remember the songs. I remember pizza fractions. I remember fabric spread across tables and tiny buildings sitting everywhere. I remember students who had every reason to quit deciding to try again. And somewhere in that memory is a teacher with a sprained ankle still planning the next math lesson because the story was never really about math. It was about kids who needed someone to believe they could still shine.