Family vacation

Beautiful people in a beautiful place. What could be more fun?

Gifts

A gift is when you wake up thinking it's time to work-out but see a sky filled with puffy little clouds and spend half an hour taking 100-some pictures first.

A gift is when you wander down to the waterfront to see the people gathering for the start of the Rose Festival and get there just in time for a fireworks show.

A gift is when you leave the restaurant after a dinner to celebrate your anniversary and stumble into an outdoor jazz concert on the plaza.

A gift is when you look out your window and see purple iris blossoms and yellow petunia blossoms and white and yellow and pink blossoms from plants you don't even know how to name because somebody else planted them for you before you even got there.

A gift is having your creme brulee work out on Father's Day even though you've never cooked it before and the directions for it are two pages long.

A gift is having time to get the things on your list done.

A gift is sitting on your back porch after a long walk and watching humming birds flit around.

Life is full of gifts. Around corners, in the yard, in the morning, at the park.

Seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting. A gift is being alive to celebrate each one.

Going back

It's a strange sensation to return to a place you've lived before. Kind of an out-of-body experience.


Driving down roads you once traveled daily, seeing sights that were so familiar and yet are now so rare, leaves one with feelings beyond words.


And in my case, that's really saying something.


There's where we used to pick strawberries. That's where I used to shop for frames. Somebody's best friend used to live there. That park was our favorite on hot days. We watched them construct that building. I used to go there for meetings.


We've gone on without those places. They've gone on without us.


But a big part of my heart is still there.


And always will be.




































Pictures from a park we used to visit every spring.
One memory is even of our little toddler falling in the pond!