Family Outing

29 Oct 2011 (Saturday)

Family Outing

Today, in spite of all the work we have to get done, we did something spontaneous-- we left home for a family outing. First we went down the highway to look at some small cabins to consider for Hubby's "Man Cave" thing he's wanting (I haven't told him that's a 'metrosexual' term yet). He was really excited about them, and as soon as we were standing in them (there were a few models, though the trailer-hitched one that I'd taken a picture of during the Pig Roast was already sold--apparently, as it wasn't there) he started talking about how he'd set it up for his chillin' "do nothing" pleasure. I haven't seen him get that excited for a while, so it was a pleasure to see.

The kids ran around a bunch while we looked and briefly talked over the idea. I wanted Hubby to get the sense of what that little cabin could provide for him and help him "be."

Then we went to the river off the same Highway, I think it was the Stillagamish River. That's where this posts pics are from. The kids threw rocks into the river. We lost count of how many dead salmon were everywhere. The river was low, and the early evening light/ clear sun setting low was beautiful. I took probably a hundred pictures-- mostly of rocks, some of the river, the kids, the Hubby, and a couple of my shirt that accidentally got snapped. Oops.

Miss Girl was very unhappy with me for a while just after we got to the river. It was a pleasant walk to get to the rocky areas, excepting the fowl odor or rotting fish (yes, I misspelled foul on purpose). I was able to get some great shots of the fall colors from the trees, some interesting (to me) rock shots, including my favorite-- the 'zen balance' rock thingy I stacked to stage for the photo shoot. The light was too perfect to not use it in some way, and the light and shadows were changing rapidly as the sun lowered in the sky. It was hard to take pics of the kids together and/or with Hubby because they were quite busy running and thrown rocks, and a bit of a temper. By the end of our walk, Girl had become a little softer towards me. See, I had made her throw back a rock that had a heart drawn on it. I didn't realize "Dad gave it to [me]!" and tried explaining that if someone took the time to draw a heart on it, then there's also probably a wish on it, and she shouldn't take someone else's wish away. We explored around a bit for a "new" place to eat and that seemed to fix all negative attitudes. Girl rested her head on my shoulder in our booth, and Boy rested his head on Dad's shoulder after eating about 4-5 platefuls at some sort of asian/american buffet place.

It's often easy for us to forget (maybe the military beats it out of us, I don't know), that "rest" is a privilege and comes only after the work is done. The problem is, in military there are shifts taken, so though you may not get a full rest, there is some time where one doesn't have to be on high guard/alert. However, that doesn't mean you get to run off like a gang banger to do whatever you want. That means this whole idea of "working until the day you die" is a fallacy. I'll have to refer back to the story of God creation (Biblical style)-- He included a FULL day of rest, and doing the prep work (such as food, business, etc) before the day of rest so that all you have to do on that day is. . . rest.

So that's what we practiced today. Rest, doing something out of our ordinary, something we haven't done in some time all together, and for a brief moment, forgetting how much work is still waiting to be done. Time still is passing, work still needs to be done. But so did this. Evidenced by the kids' bolt as soon as I said, "Go run!" They do love exploration!

We completed the day by watching the cult classic "Ghostbusters." I'm still amazed at how quickly the children are growing.

Well, enjoy the few pis I'm sharing from our trip today. :) Um, looks like I'm not going to be able to post as many as I'd like right now. It's about 2am (for Sunday), so I'll try again later. In the meanwhile, enjoy the couple.

~Cedeham~