Family matters

It's spring. The Noah project has ended (40 days of non-stop rain, or so it felt). The 10 day forecast shows sun or partial sun and that just makes me giddy as can be.
We've taken our 2-mile family walk on a local park trail for several days now. It winds past three ponds and a river, ending at a fishing lake with a beautiful view. Our kids like to run ahead to lay branches across the path as obstacles. Dh and I have to act like we don't see them and pretend to trip over them. Pathetic performances? Oh yeah! We've been making fake dorks out of ourselves for months now and yet...every time we take family walk together, game on.


My brother is a big birding fan. I try to catch a few pics to show him. However, I bring camera, birds laugh and fly away (seriously, I think they're laughing). I leave camera home and the rarest of birds are spotted. I told dh I wouldn't doubt that several birds might just land right on my shoulder, might even boldly serenade me just because I had no camera to document the occasion.
Or that I might spot a non-native species and completely miss the money shot. You know, like say, a toucan in a birch tree. Don't think I'm not lookin' either.


Oh, and another game we play...wait, let me clarify this one. A game that moi played exactly ONCE (yesterday) and won't likely play again is a foot race in the parking lot. We got back to the lot yesterday and the kids decided I needed to race them to our van. G'head, take yer best shot, chitlins. I lined up, standard starting position. They all tried to strike the same pose all the way down to the 2 year old. Daddy was the gunner dude (I'm sure that's not the official name for the, uh, official race starter person).

"On your mark! Get set! GOooo!"

I shot out like a bat out of Hell, Reece on my left, Cierah on my right. Note to self. Teach littles how to stay in their own lanes in a foot race. Next thing I knew, Reece cut left, Cierah cut right, their legs got all boogered up in a big snarl directly in front of me, I tripped and flew cleeeeeean over them, and feared I either crushed toes or sent foreheads crashing to the black top. Thankfully, they were fine, thanks in no small part to their mama tensing every possible muscle in her body to abort an out and out collision with their tiny frames. Which meant, for me, a few pulled back muscles. Which would be fine if my spine wasn't the subject of a Mother Goose Nursery Rhyme (There was a crooked man who had a crooked house...)

Okay sure, so that nursery rhyme was actually about a man. Point is, my Scoliosis-ridden spine was NOT happy I was falling in multiple directions all at the same time. Carl laughs when I say I'm gonna have a bad case of Kyphosis some day (and that's in another story, the Hunchback of Notre Dame). With my luck, I'll be the only hunchback with the pleural form, Kyphosai. A two-humped camel, if you will. Our foot race just nudged me further in that direction. It's never too early to peer into the future and prepare. Off to check out walkers on Craigslist.

Oh, and p.s.
We had our family bible lesson tonight, as we often do. Carl and I talked about a few heavier but very important messages with the kids, like marriage and family and God's purposes and will at work there. As we took turns praying, our collective words were serious, God centered, and filled with words of adoration and thankfulness.
That is, until Reece jumped in.
"God, please make Brandon stop liking golf. He's been taking my golf balls and playing with them for like 3, or prob-ly more, like 4 or 5 days or something, and I can't even play golf. It's my game too, so I really really hope he quits liking golf. Thank you for my wonderful family. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen."

Toni