Episode 57: How to live an adventurous life with your family, with Annika Mang of Born to Be Adventurous
Episode Description
Today’s guest is so fired up about being an adventure mom that she is willing to take her two daughters sledding in the freezing cold winter weather or take them on climbing adventures. Annika Mang is the Founder and writer at BorntobeAdventurous.com and believes wholeheartedly in modeling her passion for the outdoors to her children. In fact, her and her husband actually started climbing after their kids were born! As a former high school P.E. teacher, Annika has recently made the shift to working solely on her Born to Be Adventurous community which has grown to five Facebook groups that are connecting mamas that love to adventure from across western Canada.
Her and her family are game for most outdoor pursuits but her top three are snowboarding, camping and climbing. As someone who grew up snowboarding and playing rugby, among other things, she chose a partner with similar interests and ended up hiking and kayaking through Nepal and the Canadian Rockies, and learned to surf in Portugal, Bali and the west coast of Canada together. Because they both are deeply rooted in all things nature, they bring their kids along for the ride as much as possible. She shares on her social media platforms that it isn’t always easy and that there are most definitely times that her girls are not wanting to be there or tired and grumpy. It’s just all a part of the motherhood package.
BorntobeAdventurous.com was created as a platform to share and inspire other families to get outdoors and adventure with their kids. Today she is going to share about her current move towards saying YES to personal adventure, and YES to more adventures with her family. She is also going to share the ups and the downs of doing it all with a 3 and a 5 year old and advice for mamas wanting to adventure more with their wee ones.
Take-Aways
10:57: Advice she would give her new mommy self looking back-They are only this little a short while! Don’t rush everything!
17:35: Annika reflects on their first travels with their infant and how it took three times as long to go for a hike, but it was still worth the effort.
18:59:
Annika also speaks candidly about the challenges of traveling with wee ones. She shares about a trip that went “terribly wrong” on their final day and included intestinal sickness and having to carry babies and gear down the trail.
24:54
The first time she was away from her daughter she had to hand express her milk from her tent because she was so engorged.
34:12:
How stepping away from teaching was not an easy decision and it didn’t come lightly. She had to make the conscious choice to move towards her dreams and the “Born to Be Adventurous” Community.
42:02:
Annika wants to model to her kids that it’s okay to fail and get back up and there will be big mountains to climb, but they just need to keep pushing through.
Memorable Quotes
“Do your best to stay active and if you can do the activities you were doing before, then you do them. But if you can’t, that’s okay, because your body .”
“Behind every adventure there’s usually someone’s has cried at some point because they’ve either fallen or something has happened.”
“If we’re trying to make a career shift, if we’re staying at home or if we’re switching something in our lives, or if we’re going on adventures, there’s always going to be people who are going to have an opposite opinion.”
“I really love the idea of building something- being an entrepreneur and seeing if I can make something work out. It is kind of exciting adventure in and of itself.”
“Being a soul mamma to me means, embracing each stage of motherhood where you’re at. . .”
” Hopefully our kids will see that no matter where you are, that you can follow your dreams and you can really pursue those dreams and still have a family, and do that together.”
“When you have kids, you have this opportunity to see adventure through their eyes and it’s fantastic. It’s like really, it’s such a unique experience that you just can’t describe.”