the stuff that dreams are made of

Last Friday was one of my best days. Remember in the movie "City Slickers", when they were riding on their horses and talking about their best and worst days? I could have answered that question by stating that last Friday was surely in my top 10 list.

I took a couple of days off at the end of last week. I scheduled them back in January, hoping that we could do a 4-day weekend trip. However, putting in a new air unit upstairs kept us from traveling, so we decided to spend part of the day driving on the Natchez Trace Parkway. We've always talked about doing it, and the weather was perfect so we decided to pack a picnic lunch and head out 96. We drove to Leiper's Fork and walked around downtown for an hour or so. Plenty of antique stores with alot of really neat stuff. Visited Puckett's Grocery, and that was pretty cool. After our tour of downtown Leiper's Fork, we got back on the Parkway and headed north. The view from the bridge was amazing. We found a little side road, and their are plenty of these "stops" along the parkway, and ventured off onto it. At the end of the road, there were probably 30 parking spaces. We parked and looked out over another spectacular view toward the east. How people can ever doubt God's existense after seeing His creation like this is beyond me. We sat in the grass on a couple of old towels and ate pbj sandwiches. We left some bread behind for the wildlife. We even had a good laugh about the lack of "facilities", and wondered if the dancing Charmin toilet paper bears were anywhere near. We got back on 96, went to downtown Franklin and spent another hour or so just walking around and going into the different shops.

The amazing thing about the whole day was that neither of the girls said they were bored the entire time. They didn't even watch a movie in the van on the trip! It made me think that this may be one of those times that they look back on when they get older, and realize that being a part of a family isn't so bad after all. Sure, sisters will fight, but they still love each other. Parents will disagree with their childrens' actions sometimes, but they still love their kids. And Mom and Dad may not always agree on everything, but Dad still hugs and kisses on Mom every chance he gets. It's all about being a part of a normal, healthy family.

Don't get me wrong, we don't have everything figured out. Both parenting and marriage are two "jobs" that you never finish with the training. But I'm glad that I get to do all my learning with my three girls. They make the training seem not so bad.....