A Moment to Breathe

 It's been a busy weekend. There is always so much to do, so much work to be completed when The Daddy is off. But sometimes it all has to be shoved aside so we can just enjoy this life up in the mountains. The work will always be there. These girls are growing up too fast, and time must be taken to stop, and breathe, and watch them grow.

And there is no better place for this than the great outdoors... outdoors that doesn't involve taming goats or feeding peach scraps to chickens, or weeding gardens or baking.

 We packed up a quick picnic dinner, threw it in the back of the truck with the fishing poles, loaded up the kids and the lab-dog, and drove the fifteen minutes to a nearby lake.

We wandered and explored a trail up the side of a hill, surrounded by the smell of spruce and damp forest earth. The aspens whispered stories to us as we picked our way through the rocks, watching Two Little Girls skip and run and collect sticks and hold mini-races along the way.

 Watching these girls outdoors like this is probably my Very Favorite Activity. I love the way they fly along the path, arms stretched out - truly spreading their wings. I love how they see some tiny little thing and they stop abruptly to inspect. I love listening to them play dinosaur or horse, and I love hearing what they think about as we walk along. Both of these girls are so truly in their element in places like this.

 On the way back to the lake, we stopped at a raspberry patch for a quick snack. If you've never picked raspberries from the canes growing on the side of a forest trail, you haven't really lived.

 When we finished our hike, we settled down by the lake to drown some worms. Clearly, the fish were more interested in the gnats and the mosquitoes landing on the surface than they were in the worms we were offering. But that's okay, because Two Little Girls were more interested in more rapsberries and trying to tame marmots than they were in fishing. It worked out just fine.

 Sometimes we forget to stop and take these breaks. We love what we are doing up here, all of our farming chores that usually feel more like play than like work. But these moments, the ones free of any direction, are still so important.

Must. Not. Forget. To. Breathe.