Stephen Colletti Quotes

We just weren't a family that gathered around the TV. I grew up in a town where everyone was outside all the time. I was mostly in Connecticut; I spent a lot of time in Tennessee in the summers, but I was in Stamford, Connecticut.

My father being an outdoors person, he used to take us on quite a few adventures thorugh the wild areas down there, introducing us to alligators and rattlesnakes and all the trees and plants.

My parents had us very young. We lived in a modest house. We built forts, we hiked, we went camping and they wanted us to be independent. It's how children grew up in the 1940s and 50s: outside all the time, playing in the dirt, riding your bike around.

My earliest memory from childhood is of fishing with my father. And I remember vividly we were in a store, and we were buying a pup tent to go on our first camping trip.

It was probably my parents who inspired me most. My father was a scientist and answered my scientific questions, while my mother took me on walks and showed me birds and plants. She also took me out at night and showed me the constellations and the aurora.

I grew up hunting and fishing in Land Between the Lakes. I have so many great memories of camping with my mom over at Redd Hollow.

As a parent, I tell my boys to keep away their smartphones and go outdoors and play. I take them to our farm where my father does a bit of farming, where they get their hands dirty. It is their digital detox.

I don't know, my parents were pretty open about a lot of things, especially my mom. And any kind of little crazy thing I was into, she was very supportive of. You know, whether it was BMX bike racing or being in the Boy Scouts or surfing or anything else, she always seemed to sort of support it.

My idea of a vacation is staying home and doing short day hikes, floating the river and things like that.

Just about every weekend when I was growing up, we would throw rods and rifles and tents and shovels and pickaxes into the back of the truck and then head off to the side of a mountain or the bottom of a canyon. Hiking, fishing, hunting, rock-hounding: this is how my parents passed the time.

Well, right now we're so busy that I kind of had to put all the hobbies on hold. But I like going camping with my kids. I have two daughters; they're 7 and 10 years old.

I applaud anything that can take a kid away from a PlayStation or a Gameboy. That is a miracle in itself.

My brothers and I love playing outside and climbing trees. We really love sports, too - I think football's probably my favorite.

I try to lead a pretty active lifestyle. My biggest hobby is traveling with my family. I love to travel to new places and try crazy things. I'm a bit of a daredevil, so I have done things like zip lining, parasailing, scuba diving, and reverse bungee jumping!

My friends and I would get up early and take our horses through the national forest. My mom was very free. It was always 'Out of the house!' There was no watching television on weekends.

I grew up listening to my father argue politics into the night and taking trips every Saturday to the Hood River library where my mother maintained her interest in reading and encouraged the same from her sons.

I guess I was a bit of a tomboy. I liked to catch frogs in the ditch, play soccer with my brother's friends and play video games.

I enjoy doing fun things outdoors with my son to stay in shape. We like camping together. After a weekend in the woods, I'm sorer than after a week at the gym!

Whenever we went on a trip, picnic, or business trip, I was always with my dad, and I would just always be in contact with cosmonauts, and I thought it would be always normal to be with them.

My dad is very successful in his business. He's always been big in having hobbies and having little ways to get away. He always made time for hunting and fishing. He always encouraged me to do it.

I had one of the most outdoorsy childhoods you could imagine. I basically lived in the woods until I was 13. My dad and I built a huge treehouse in our backyard in Chesterfield, about 30 feet in the air. And we'd vacation on an island in Michigan, where I hunted a deer that we ate.

As parents, we need to send our kids back to 'old-fashioned' outdoor summer camps, which have been on the decline as the demand for sports and academics-based camps has risen. We need to fight budget cuts to public parks programs and resist closures of public swimming pools and playgrounds.

Leave part of the yard rough. Don't manicure everything. Small children in particular love to turn over rocks and find bugs, and give them some space to do that. Take your child fishing. Take your child on hikes.

I didn't grow up playing video games. I grew up catching crawdads in the creek and minnows and lizards and snakes.

I've been doing a lot of hiking, which I love.