Moments Like These

Peaceful. Slowing down. Butterflies flitting. A walk around the lake at our local park. We had dropped my nephew off at his friends and I knew we wanted to DO something. I didn't want to go straight home. I didn't want to spend money. I did want to be outdoors. So we went for a walk. At first there was some resistance. A walk? Why not the playground? Then...OK let's go. At first DD was whiny and wanted me to carry her. I did for a bit. Then we found them. A patch of berries. Ripe and juicy. We all got in on the picking. It became our mission as we walked along. Find more berries. It was fun; getting our hands stained with the red juice. YUM YUM. Then as we rounded the bend we hit the JACKPOT. Bushes and bushes of berries. WooHoo. My water bottle was empty and we began to drop the treasure in. And of course we ate some more. We collected over a cup and decided to move along, saving some for others. There was an older lady riding her bike, she passed us a few times. We let her in on the "secret" berries. Secret because I can not even tell you how many times I have gone past them without even knowing they were there. The lady was delighted. We continued on. We entered into the wooded part of the trail. Shady and cool. We climbed up the ridge to look over the lake then came back to the path. Then we spotted delight #2; the tinest frogs I have ever seen. The size of a pinky nail or smaller. As we walked along we spotted tons of them. We had to watch where we were walking because they were literally everywhere on the path. Never noticed those before either. We were inturrupted from frog watching when a turtle decided to cross the path. A female painted, probably 10 years old. (I love painted turtles and have done my share of research.) She walked away, we continued on. Emerging out of the woods we got a drink and then headed down the boardwalk. Little fish here and there. The kids searched the bank for the ellusive muskrat. Then we arrived to the swimming area. Everyone was wearing shorts and sandels so we waded in. Well the wading lasted for a moment. DD laid right down in the water. DS asked if he could go in. I knew that they had dry clothes in the car. No big deal...go ahead get wet. My neice was a little more difficult. She had no dry clothes in the car. She gave me the look and promised to sit on her blanket on the ride home. Permission granted. I rolled up the capris and waded in a little further. They splashed and swam. Then we dripped back to the car. I had a sweatshirt in the back; perfect for my neice. And changed my kiddos. Then we were off. A splendid afternoon.