Cultivating Family Bonds

Last week my kids saw that they were a part of something bigger. Their identity expanded and their sense of belonging deepened. We spent eleven days visiting family and friends in California. Spending time away from home was refreshing for all of us and spending quality time with my side of the family was beautiful.

Day 1 and 2 - Our adventurous drive to Oakhurst
After making sure Jonathan had plenty of waffles, lasagna, chili and cornbread while we were gone we headed out on our adventure after David got off work at 3:00. We got to Tuscon at 4:30 but did not leave Tucson till 6:00 due to a visit to a tractor shop with the Smiths. This resulted in our not getting to Palm Springs until close to midnight. (Thankfully David drove!) While there Orion and Omega fell in love with a pedal tractor that looked similar to this:

As you can imagine, both kids wanted to ride it. They did well taking turns at first, but on Orion's second turn he had a hard time getting off. The man at the store saw this little boy's love for manly machinery and at the end of our visit gave Orion a mini excavator. (For all you non-farmers or women unfamiliar with the names of equipment, it looks like this:)

He was delighted and rewarded for regaining his composure. Omega understood and did not complain about not getting anything.

As we approached our hotel (A Holiday Inn Express which we price-lined for half the normal cost!) the streets looked extremely familiar. I realized I had scouted that territory in my colporteur days (door to door literature evangelism). That brought back fond memories and a tinge of sadness to not experience that heavenly camaraderie and sense of urgency and mission. We had a decent night's sleep and were only 6 hours from our final destination to my Mom's house in Oakhurst. That gave us plenty of wiggle room so we did some shopping for much needed tennis-shoes. We wasted a lot of time wandering through the mall. The shoe stores blasted their music so loud the kids covered their ears and the customer service was not impressive. We finally gave up and began driving. Then, lo and behold we saw some outlets with a Merrel shoe store. I ended up getting these, only in green, not yellow. By the way, the customer service was fantastic!

  
David got some too, but not the barefoot type. Right next door to the Merrel store was a Le Creuset cookware store which I drooled in. All that put us behind and so we got to my mom's house by bedtime instead of by supper time. While we were driving Omega kept saying, "I wish we were at Neena's house already." So I let her talk to Neena (my mom) on the phone and they (or should I say Omega) talked for almost 2 hours! She was a non-stop chatterbox! That was like a million dollars deposited in Omega's little love bank :)