Are We Still Living Our Dreams?

Always. But not all the time.

Ever since I started sharing our journey I talk about making our dreams come true. About not letting the doubts, the fears, the whole world stopping us from what we want to do, what is right for us.

But our life cannot be non-stop big dreams and adventures all the time. And that does not mean we are not living our dreams, or that we do not have other dreams we want to realize.

Here is something people do not talk about enough: dreams change. And that is not failure. That is just life.

Simple life with no unexpected weather adventures, routine, close friends, and even school were things we wished for a long time while living our big dream of boat life. And now that we are enjoying our land routine in Spain, we have other dreams too.

Our dreams grow, adapt, and change, just as we do.

The trick is to accept it, acknowledge your dreams, and continuously look for opportunities. Not from a place of missing out, but from a place of being open.

We live fully. We enjoy where we are and what we have. And we stay open for new things, including change and uncertainty.

That openness is not passive. It is a choice we make, again and again.

A few weeks ago, it looked like a canceled flight.

When Passover became a snowboard trip

Our connecting flight from Europe to Israel for the holiday got canceled. We were devastated to miss Passover with our family. It is my favorite holiday of the year and we were not going to make it.

But we had a non-refundable ticket to Austria that was still valid. And we looked at each other and decided to make something out of it.

We took the opportunity to make an old dream come true and learn how to snowboard as a family.

So we found ourselves heading to the Austrian Alps.

Sea people on a snowboard

We are sea people. Sand, salt, open horizons. Snow is not exactly our natural habitat.

Sergey already knew how to snowboard. The boys and I took an instructor to introduce us to this new sport and while I progressed like a human, the boys progressed like boys who have been skateboarding their whole lives, so fast that the instructor had to completely rethink his lesson plan because they were already ahead of it.

Knowing my limits, and my well-documented superpower for leg injuries after too many boat and snow related hospital visits, I let myself go slower and take more breaks. On my breaks they flew down the fast slopes with Sergey. When I was ready they were there, waiting, cheering, ready to go again together.

We were not equal on those slopes. But we were together the whole time.

9km and a dream I never knew I had

By the end of the week we did a 9km snowboarding trip between two sites, Scheffau and Ellmau in the Austrian Alps.

The week was all about falling, laughing, enjoying real snow falling on our heads, encouraging each other, building huge and huger snowmen, and eating Kaiserschmarrn at every possible opportunity.

It ended up being one of those weeks that felt like forever, packed with moments and memories we did not even know we were dreaming of.

Just the five of us again, following another dream together like we love to do.

What this means about living your dreams

I think we have a complicated relationship with the word dream. We reserve it for the big things, the ones that look impressive from the outside, the ones that photograph well. And in doing that, we quietly dismiss all the others.

But a dream is just something you want that you have not yet allowed yourself to have. Sometimes it is sailing across an ocean, sometimes it is a week in the snow with your kids on a snowboard for the first time. Both count. Both are worth chasing.

The two things that help us most: recognizing the dream when it shows up, even when it was not the plan. And looking for the opportunity inside the mess.

The lemonade this week was perfect. And it only happened because a flight got canceled.

Celebrate the small dreams too. They are the ones that keep you going.