Next month is mine and Brent’s 5th wedding anniversary. (In which we celebrate the best five years of our whole entire lives!!!) But Brent found this awesome deal on Groupon, so he grabbed it up and we took off early for a few days while his parents watched our kids. (Thank You, Lord, for parents. Parents who really, really like our kids.)

We decided to be a little crazy and go to this theme park together. The two of us had never ridden a roller coaster side-by-side, so we decided it was high time to get our scream on.

Oh my goodness. I cannot express to you the amount of intense jubilee we experienced while riding roller coasters and bumper cars and go carts. And the amount of pain. When we weren’t laughing, we were yelling for the ride to STOP because it hurt so much. At one point, Brent was crying out for his mommy. At another point, I was holding myself and rocking myself and trying desperately to comfort myself while being jolted around at high speeds on this wooden track that I’m pretty sure was only held stable by a few screws. It was terrible. And it was awesome. But, mostly terrible. In a good kind of way.

The trip was just so good for us. For one thing, we did a lot of laughing. I think we had kinda forgot what we were actually like before we had yelling children. We talked about serious things. Like, Brent would ask me, “How am I doing as a husband?” Or, “How am I doing as a dad?” But, we were also just plain ole goofy. Because the neat thing about being unconditionally and fervently loved by someone is that you’re free to be your normal nutty buffalo bearded self, you know? It’s so great.

I had asked Brent before we left, if we could leave behind the laptop. Because on our honeymoon we were completely unplugged. No computers. No television. Just the good ole outdoors and staring into each other’s googly eyes. And so we said, “Forget you, laptop!” And we didn’t miss it one bit. We went on walks and sometimes we talked and talked and sometimes we were just quiet and observant and it was good for our souls.

And it made me realize that I don’t need to be “plugged in” so much. Because I want to be a partaker of life, not just an observer. And I want to enter fully into it. To be fully present, because that’s when I feel most alive and when I sense God is nearest. Probably just because all the distraction is shoved aside and I’m more in tune. 

I was so thankful because we had the most delicious weather. The sun was warm. And the breeze was gentle and cool and it felt like summer was just holding on. Close to the Inn that we stayed at, there were all my favorite wildflowers! I refrained from plucking huge bouquets of them, but I did daydream of making my yard look like this. I didn’t mention that part to Brent, though.

Look at the view from our deck! Isn’t that spectacular?!  We sat out in those chairs and just read and basked in the warmth and watched the cattails sway. At one point I saw this little turtle swimming around in his watery world.

We weren’t really wanting to leave that place but we did miss our yelling kids. Speaking of which, Hopey just woke up and his now yelling for me to come.

So, I’m gonna turn off this computer some more and just enjoy this life with these kids and this husband and pay closer attention to all these moments.

I think I won’t regret that. Not one bit.