We were driving in the car this afternoon on our way back from Victoria, BC where we took a two day family getaway for President's weekend. Its a little past four and the sky is so dark with the heavy weight of rain that is bursting out and making the driving rather challenging. I am staring out at the beautiful but drenched fields thinking, "enough, this is enough, no more gray days." I literally started fantasizing about sweating and the feeling of heat from the sun on my face when I was interrupted by Stephen, who looked almost giddy, and said, "oh, I love this!" I kid you not. i laughed out loud. I let him know that at the exact moment he was relishing in the sound of more rain, the different shades of grey, and the coziness of it all, I was basically fantasizing about Hawaii.

Northwest life is truly not for everyone, the extremes so extreme. The most stunning sunshiney months you could ever imagine with long days and endless sunsets over the water to rave about followed by days and days and days and months and months of heavy thick clouds spitting. I was eager to get away and find the comfort of mountain views, fireplaces, the ocean, and I thought rest. I cannot complain at all. Only the gifts of my weekend came in entirely different packages than i expected. I forget, truly, how different traveling with children is - and i have no idea why i am such a slow learner. But this time, we served ourselves well because we also tried to be quick to give up and enjoy what we could.

As I return tonight and reflect on our mini trip, I smile at the surprisingly sweet moments. Our son no longer screams the whole way in the car, and I believe has gotten more familiar with the carseat and roadtrips and sitting across from his delightful sister. We swam,in the rain, everyday in a beautiful heated pool surrounded by trees and mountains. And we made it out for one meal that coordinated between travel and naps and bedtimes, and though the four brunch spots we had walked to prior to finding this one had waits of an hour +, we remember you can't go to the best new spot with two small hangry children. So we slip into one spot with mostly community tables and we enjoy their speciality of cream cheese syrup on just about anything we could order. We couldn't really use our phones much and that was a surprising gift of disconnect. We did however teach Mateo about selfies and saying cheese and I believe he fell in love with pictures of himself and delighted us to no end with his wrinkled face grins. In fact, we all got quite carried away on the selfies as you'll see below.

So, I'm thankful, for all the ways that when life is so unexpected, it can also be opportunities to find new joy, simple joy - together.