Ordinary Days

Greeley, Colorado

We aren't always out hiking amidst giant trees and towering waterfalls or exploring fantastic city scapes or ancient ruins. Many of our days are very ordinary. We play Monopoly. We read books. We do math. We wash laundry. We cook. The kids have been slowly working their way through all the Marvel movies. I finished a quilt. Right now we are back at my mom's house and in fact spent yesterday evening weeding the flower garden and catching toads.

We spent the week of the 4th of July living in Rexburg, seeing our older kids whenever they weren't in class or at work. And exploring the town on our own when they were. We had a barbecue. We went to a fireworks show. And we played at the park a lot. En route to Canada we met up with old friends who had moved and just hung out at a park for a couple hours. We went to a small family reunion in Boise and met extended family most of us never had before and had a really great time eating and talking and playing in the backyard. We spent 3 days in Ogden with no other agenda than visiting big kids again.

The ordinary days and the ordinary activities are important. First because laundry and cooking and school are all things that still need to get done. And because a daily walk with my husband and an almost daily yoga routine keep me sane. And weeding a garden and catching toads is just plain fun. Yes even the weeding. Without the ordinary stuff, we couldn't maintain the fantastic stuff. But also, the beaches and waterfalls and giant trees have all been great, but none of it beats having our grown up son crash on our couch and sleep the afternoon away or watching my little kids get to play in the river with their big sister and her husband or piling into a hammock with cousins they previously didn't even know they had.

So we look forward to more adventures and excitement, but we also plan to continue enjoying and celebrating the ordinary days.