Fun Times With the Family

Well, it's been a pretty busy time lately, with us expecting, my wife's home business running, me working, and our son in school. We decided to take the day today as a "family day". We went out for breakfast together at Golden Griddle (delicious as always, and we were famished), followed by my wife taking a long nap while my son and I raced Hot Wheels cars on a homemade track/ramp. Then we went for a very long afternoon walk/hike into a local conservation area. It was a beautiful day - a little warm for a fall day, but walking through the nature trails with leaves crunching under foot and a slight breeze - albeit warm - was a tantalizing experience. We stopped off at the shore and skipped rocks. Unfortunately, I continue to have the distinction of being a person who has things happen to him that are typically against the odds - yesterday, while all three of us were skipping rocks, my wife said "here's a huge rock - check out this throw". I was standing right beside her and watched. Unfortunately, she must have slipped on the muddy shoreline because I went down like a sack of bricks, when I...yes, I who was standing directly beside her, was accidentally - or so the story goes, haha - nailed by that big rock that she was trying to skim. It hurt pretty bad, as I went down. My wife immediately came to my aid and after a few minutes I was able to recover, though I told her that I will pass on rock skipping for the rest of the afternoon.

If there is ever a good reminder of God's creating power, it is clearly evident when we go into nature. Some people hate the outdoors - I don't like man-made outdoor things like waterparks and crap like that - but I love going into the forest and finding a spot near the shore, or sitting on a low cliff and watching the water flow onto shore, while birds sing in the background and the leaves of trees rustle. It is truly relaxing, and not in a pantheistic new-age way.

We ended the day in a less-than-natural activity - having a mid-evening BBQ, where I bought a pack of Lick's burgers and threw them on the grill. Those things are fart and burp inducers like nothing else, but they are so damn delicious. When our son had gone to bed (which is a bit of a disconcerting experience these days, since he is wetting his bed regularly in the middle of the night - another topic for another time), we made a couple of cups of coffee and watched some videos that I had purchased on the cheap at the local store. Actually, we watched one (Alpha Dog - which wasn't our cup of tea in the least) - the other - The Last King of Scotland - we watched the night before.