Monday, August 8, 2011

Country Road

The girls and I took a little trip to the country. 


We went to visit my BFF who is just weeks from bringing her fourth little bundle of joy home to experience country living.  At this visit, we celebrated.  We celebrate birthdays and unbirthdays, friendships and babies, and most importantly we celebrated Shaun and Chad's 10th Anniverary.


Everyday I wish Shaun and her family lived closer to us than the current six hour drive.  I wish she lived just down the street so that we could meet at the park or go for ice cream.  She could come over on Thursdays when Jon is out golfing and stay late and the kids could play in their jammies and we could watch old Jenny Jones Shows like we did in college. 


On the drive home... when all was quiet as Callie was entranced with Monsters Inc on the life-saving portable dvd and Lexi was fast asleep due to exhaustion from the abundance of country air... I was feeling sad leaving my friend.  Again wishing that geography wasn't against us.  Wishing that I could be there when baby came into the world.  Wishing that I could be of more help than just sending flowers and an e-mail congrats.


I drove, taking in the prairie scenery... glowing yellow canola fields, cows and horses, fences painted bright white, old barns with thier aged, grey boards on the verge of collapsing, and the never ending horizon.  Callie poked her head up from her movie every so often and interupted the silence with questions...why are those barns falling down? Why do cows eat grass?

I thought about our visit and how much fun my girls had at the farm.  I witnessed Callie's uncontainable excitement as she headed out to the garden to pick vegetables.  Geared up in rubber boots and toting empty ice-cream pails she radiated enthusiam for the unknown as she has never been in a garden before.  And I had a moment as stood back and watched Chad name all the vegetables and explain how you only pick the fat pea pods and showed her which carrot tops to pull.  And in that moment I realized that, up until this point, Callie thought peas and carrots and lettuce and corn came from the grocery store and that this was amazing, and somehow like magic, that these vegetables were growing from the ground!



So for as much as I wish Shaun lived six minutes away instead of six hours I realized on my drive home that if she did  we would be living the same experiences.  And if she lived down the street my girls would not have seen where vegetables actually come from.  They would not have experienced the sound of complete silence, the joy of catching frogs, or the friendliness of shopping at the local Co-op where sceaming kids get rewarded with candy!


And they wouldn't have experience the world's best bakery.


I am still sad that we are so far apart but so completely grateful for the hospitality and the experience.  A lot has changed in the last decade... things just keep getting better.  Happy "10 years" my friends!

1 comment:

Christine said...

;) great story today! You visit looked wonderful!