It’s easy to talk about “wellness” in high level, superficial terms – eat your veggies, drink water, move your body, practice self-care, have community.

And there are some obvious “rules.”

But when you start to dig in to the complexities of real life, things get a little trickier to navigate.

That’s one of the things I’ve enjoyed so much about the instagrammers who have kicked off our 2018 project – Sammy Losee, Patty Bobb and Dawn Hunter.

This week, Dawn Hunter explores a whole bunch of reality – like, how do you fit in self-care, or a 45 minute work out, when you’re a working mama of three? Like, what kind of guidelines do you enforce in your home, to get a host of different humans onto the same page? Like, what do you do when you’ve literally left birthday plans to the last minute? Like, how often do we sing the praises, or say thanks, to the unsung heroes and toilers of our wellness system – the lab techs, emergency service workers, clinic staff and docs.

Or: what do you do when your kids’ participation in sports means that you spend more time in the car than at family dinners?

by Dawn Hunter

Sports are a huge part of our family’s life .We have tried to introduce our girls to all the sports that are available to them in our community. As they get older and more competitive they have had to choose what sport they would like to persue on a higher level. Alexa and Ruby chose soccer!. However living in a winter town, this decision has come at a great cost of travel. Alexa plays on a North Vancouver Metro team and practices 2 weeknights in Vancouver and has games anywhere from Abbotsford to North Vancouver on Sundays. Ruby plays for the Sea to Sky Rep team and practices 2 days a week in Whistler and games in Vancouver on Sundays. The girsl Sunday games rarely coincide with each other. We do have a car pool system which makes this schedule somewhat bearable. However some weeks my husband and I put on close to 800 kms in travel. We have had many discussions on whether this is the right thing to do for these girls. It is hard to know what is right or wrong, however what I do know is this…….. The time we spend in the car travelling is quality time to talk about whats going on in their lives. We have switched from family talks at the dinner table, to road trip chatter. Keeping our kids active, and accountably for their performance and attendance builds character and keeps them healthy. Trying out for a team where you know only one other person and learn to make new friends is also a life skill. Sometimes we need to step into new situations and adapt. One day they may decide they would like to persue another sport, until then we will keep encouraging them to be the best that they can be, because before we know it we will have nothing but time on our hands. #dawnsweek #keepplaying #raisinggirls