“Hey Sally, you’ll want to aim just right of the hole.”

It was the first hole of our final day at a four day women’s golf retreat in Edgerton, Wisconsin, and I was standing on the green with three other women, including my longtime friend Marilyn. The moment I heard her offer that simple piece of advice to Sally, it all came streaming back to me. She had done the same thing last year. Not just for me, but for others. And before we even finished that first hole, I was about to experience it myself.

Rain was falling again on the third morning of my four day women's golf retreat in Edgerton, Wisconsin. Our 9:34 am tee time had been pushed back, and none of us knew exactly when we'd be able to get onto the course. So we waited. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, word came that it was time to go. Get your clubs outside!

I watched the ball fly across the green.

Then, it was hit back again to the other side of the green.

At this point, I'm not sure any of us knew whether to laugh, cry, or simply pick up the darn ball and move on to the next hole. I’m happy to report, we chose laughter.

I stopped in my tracks.

There, beside a fire in a tiny gold mining camp in Alaska, was a large heart shaped rock. Not tucked away somewhere I had been searching. Not something I had to turn over or study closely to decide whether it resembled a heart. It was simply there, in plain sight, almost perfectly placed as if waiting for me to walk around the back of those wooden benches and notice it.

I've always believed in signs.

It was 95 degrees, humid, and somewhere just down the road thousands of people were gathering for Country Thunder.

Perfect conditions for our very first farmers market, right?

If you've been following my blog, you may remember the secret I revealed earlier this year. My daughter Hannah, her boyfriend Lorenzo, and I started Stay Dirty Italian Soda Co., a mobile beverage business built around colorful Italian sodas, fun flavors, and the idea of creating an experience that makes people smile.

The water rushed through Ketchikan Creek with a force I could see and hear as I stood watching hundreds, then thousands, of pink salmon moving through the water. Some seemed to hover for a moment, gathering strength, while others propelled themselves forward with everything they had. Again and again, I watched them attempt to move upstream, only to have the current push them backward.

And then they would try again.

For the first twenty minutes, we saw nothing.

My friend Trina and I were on a whale watching excursion during the cruise portion of our recent Alaska trip, scanning the water and hoping for some sign that the whales were nearby. Our tour actually came with a money back guarantee that we would see whales, but as our boat continued across the water without a single sighting, I started wondering if we might be collecting on that promise.

Then our captain spotted something in the distance. A spout.

The boat skimmed across the water as music played and the crowd watched from shore. One moment the skiers were gliding across the lake in a long line, and the next they were climbing onto one another's shoulders, building something that seemed almost impossible while moving across the water. Higher and higher they went until a human pyramid had formed, with one skier standing at the very top.

The first step was enough to make me question what I had gotten myself into.

Ahead of me stretched 450 feet of narrow wooden planks suspended high above the Capilano River in Vancouver, British Columbia. Towering evergreens surrounded the canyon, their branches reaching toward the sky, while the river wound through the forest far below. From where I stood at the entrance to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the other side looked like a very long way away.

“Buzzy, I see one!"

No sooner had the words left Emery's mouth than she was off running across the yard, wand in hand, determined to save us all from the dragon lurking nearby. Her little sister, Autumn, was right behind her, gripping her own magical wand with complete confidence that together we could make the dragon disappear.

Thankfully, our castle was close by.