Who doesn’t love pirates?  (Not the real, Gulf of Aden kind, that is, but the fun, Johnny Depp/Jolly Roger kind.)  On Monday, I will be posting a guest blog from anthropologist Emily Frank in which she shares the exciting birthday pirate-kidnap-rescue adventure her family created for their youngest son’s eighth birthday.  It’s a beautiful – and rather exciting – story that shows the power we have to switch-on others, and the rich fun we can have when we invest time in creating adventures tailored to who we really are as people and families.

I’ve included a teaser below…see you Monday!

“I see the Pirate flag, Daddy, I see the flag. That must be where the Pirates took Mama. I am swimming to shore, I’m going to save her!!!!” And quick as a wink my eight year-old son dives off the decrepit family sail boat into the St. Lawrence and dog paddles his way to shore, with a plastic dagger clasped artfully in his mouth. I am carefully concealed behind some shrubbery where I have ‘tied’ my hands behind my back with an old bandana. I’ve put patches of mud on my legs and the pirate skull I’ve drawn on my arm will become the ‘tattoo’ that the pirates have given me to leave behind their ominous warning….