The Young and the Restless

Back in the saddle

It wasn't that I was not excited to come back to New Zealand. It was that I was not excited to come back to the cold. When we came home the only items in our fridge were a half a pint of sour cream and some chicken noodle soup that Judy had put in there for us the night before. Bless her heart. We had been up since 3am, poor Jason had to drag his jetlagged self to work while I spent the entire day unpacking and dealing with kids who were equally as tired and ornery as me. Pak n Save was the last place I wanted to go after they went to bed, but it was an inevitable date. Rain drizzled down as I stood shivering under a lone street lamp packing my own groceries into grocery bags I had to pay for. But then I remembered a quote that hit me hard during the last conference session, "How much of life do we miss by waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God that there is rain?" -Dieter F Uchtdorf. I had decided this would be my mantra. I'm choosing to find joy in the rain, even if it is in the cold dark parking lot of Pak n Save. We made it through a week of rain then our rainbow came in the form of a bright blue sky on a Saturday. Just our little family, the fresh ocean air, a new hiking trail and an overwhelming feeling of love and gratitude.

Kylie thought it was getting boring to just hike so she decided we needed to have a scavenger hunt. Pine cones were the first item on the list, but we didn't get any farther than that because we got sidetracked with a game of pine cone baseball, which led to all sorts of things and before long there were little boys scrambling up the mountainside looking for shelters, if the need to stay the night were to arise.

Topped off with ice cream cones at McDonald's and little boys that get mad when I'm "just licking off the drips". I remember my dad doing the same thing and getting upset after being handed back a half eaten ice cream cone. One of the perks of being a parent, first dibs on all the melted ice cream cones. If we were stuck on Ground Hogs Day, this would definitely be a day worth repeating.