Hello from Katrina and Will!
We’re the founders of Arrows Active Play Park! When we’re not coordinating our kid’s schedules and putting lots of love and energy into Arrows, we spend a LOT of our time at work connecting with other parents at Arrows.
The same ol’ question always comes up - how the heck did you get here?
That’s a pretty long-winded question, but we’ll try to keep it limited to the biggest moments in our story!
Back in the day...
We lived in Houston, Texas.
Right around this time, our first kiddo was born, so life started moving quickly! We moved to Boerne a very short (and very long) seven years ago to follow Will’s previous job in the oil and gas industry.
All along with this journey of raising our first (and soon, our second!) kid, Will’s company underwent a restructure followed shortly by an acquisition, and this caused some uncertainty around our future in Boerne. We KNEW we wanted to stay in this beautiful little town and weren’t ready to follow Will’s job to another city. We just knew we had to start exploring new opportunities.
The best way we knew to secure our home in Boerne was to start a business.
But what would that business be, exactly?
This is where our passions and community came into play.
Around this same time of uncertainty, we were becoming more and more involved in our local church. Our children’s ministry was desperately in need of volunteers to help out with all of the kiddos, so I [Katrina] decided to offer a helping hand - and I absolutely fell in LOVE with serving our children’s ministry!
Of course, I have always loved my own kiddos more than life itself, but it wasn’t until this point that I understood just how important it was to me to be able to serve kids and parents within my community.
I extended this passion outwards and got involved with a local chapter of the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPs) community. The connection, support, and understanding I was able to provide and support in this group was life-changing!
It’s from these experiences that Will and I started to explore the idea of working with children in some capacity.
So we reflected on everything that was important to us: faith, family, community, and serving parents. And from this, an idea was born!
We started exploring the possibility of establishing a faith-oriented, parent-friendly play park in Boerne that would allow us to serve our community AND remain in the place we loved the most.
It’s during this season that God laid Psalm 127:3-5 on my heart.
“Children are a heritage to the Lord, offspring a reward from him. Like Arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.”
That’s it!
Arrows.
Once our name, Arrows Active Play Park came to light, things moved fast!
In 2018, we took a big leap of faith in our future and bought the land that our business baby would one day reside on! We started finalizing details for the park left and right and found the perfect contractor to help make this idea a reality.
Things were finally beginning to move and unfold as we had dreamed! Our plans were in the final stages, and we had an official open date set for Arrows Active Play Park!
April 2020.
Yep.
We don’t even need to go there! But, as always, He has a plan for everything. We truly believe that God's timing was perfect because if we had opened any earlier, we’re not sure we would have been able to support the business throughout the pandemic.
God was present in every part of our journey to get where we are today. As we reflect on the rocky beginnings of Arrows amidst the pandemic, we understand that God was not telling us “no”. He was telling us, “not yet”. By God’s hand, Will never lost his job and we were able to continue pursuing our dream of opening this business.
We stand firm in the belief that this idea for an indoor playground was not our own, but rather a vision that God invited us to. God placed our passion for families into our hearts and guided us through the entire process with wholehearted faith and vision.
Fast forward a year, and in April 2021, we held our grand opening with our nearest and dearest friends and family!
Here we are, in December of 2021. 8 months in!
Each and every day, we are blessed to see faces of pure joy and peace on the faces of kids and alike. We’re honored to foster and fuel relationships within our community and provide parents with the support they deserve. We’re so proud of the staff we’ve been blessed with! Most of all, we are overwhelmed by all the ways in which we have been able to serve our community through Arrows Active Play Park.