Sunday, March 25, 2018

Sandals and Water Shoes and Low Top Hiking Boots, Oh My!


REI
Roseville, CA
March 25, 2018

My dividend from purchases at REI during 2017 arrived in the mail recently and I was more than ready to use it towards new footwear for Kellisa. I've been assembling our wall art with pictures from our hikes in each of the 50 United States and I noticed that Kellisa has worn the same few shoes on our hikes for many, many years. This makes sense since she can't walk and her feet rarely touch the ground or get sweaty, so her shoes look barely used even though she's worn them for so long. 

We didn't have anything specific in mind when we arrived, but she gets her love of shoes honestly from her mother, so it wasn't a surprise that she loved all three of the shoes she tried on. Her outdoor adventure footwear should be covered for the next decade with the purchase of these high quality shoes.

We walked around the entire store and saved the books and maps area for last so we could linger until closing time. That's when we saw families on foot staring back at us from a prominent spot on an eye level shelf. Kellisa is featured in a few places in this book, including a 2 page spread (bottom right picture). I couldn't help but show Kellisa the pictures of her out on the trails in the book. The gentleman who helped us from the shoe department came over to see if we were still OK and I could tell he looked a little puzzled as he watched me take a few pictures of the book. I explained that Kellisa has spent a lot of time out on the trails and was in this book after meeting the authors several times. He was blown away and acted like Kellisa was a celebrity...and she enjoyed every second of the accolades.

Lisa and I have been members of REI for decades and they offered Kellisa her own membership at checkout because members could save 20% on any one item. This way, we could check out twice, once under my membership and once under Kellisa's so we could save the 20% on both transactions. It made sense to me to spend the extra few minutes to help sign up my...adult...daughter for her very own membership card (top right picture). I was proud of her and left with a deep feeling of contentment from our shoe shopping adventure. It's rare that I get to do "normal" activities with Kellisa and this experience somehow felt very normal and I look forward to helping her spend her own dividend next year!



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