A connection

I'm so full of blog entries. Beware! There may be several this week.

Here is the latest. . . something wonderful that happened on Sunday afternoon. After all the naps were taken, we decided to go for a hike. I grew up hiking every Sunday afternoon. Sometimes it drove me crazy, but now I thank my father for making me do it. It got me outside, developed my love of the outdoors, gave my mom a break (I get that now!), and created a ton of amazing memories. Gary has heartily embraced the Sunday hike (love him!) so off we went. We packed up all the kids, Smokey, and a backpack to put Penny in. We went just up the road to Van Raalte Farm. Great hiking, close, nice trails and bridges, dogs allowed. . . very doable for our kids.

As were unloading, I put Penny in the backpack and lifted her up on my back. I remembered the last time I had used the backpack---China. As we began walking I told Simon that when we went to China to get him, I put him in this same backpack and we went to a really cool park. I added that we even have pictures of us together with him in the backpack. He stopped and then got super excited. He kept asking more and more questions about the backpack, us hiking in China, the pictures. He was even jumping around he was so happy. I then realized that it is the FIRST memory I've had of something that Penny is doing that I was able to see him do. We often comment to Garrison that he used to do this "just like Penny" or exclaim that Noel did the same thing when "she was Penny's age". Simon will often ask or just state that when he was a baby he did. . . X, Y, and Z. He is trying to connect. Sadly, I often say that he probably did (spit up, cry for a bottle, laugh when someone kissed him, fall down often, whatever), but that I wasn't there to see it. I wish I could have been there.

Yesterday was the day. There was a connection for Simon, something that he and Penny had in common. He has asked me more about it and I'll be looking for more opportunities to tie brother Simon and sister Penny.

And oh, the hiking was great. And we saw three frogs. And we heard hundreds of frogs. And we saw buds. And we found walking sticks. And we went wading in the creek. In our clothes. And our shoes. The kids thought it was awesome. They were right.