Simply Good

Today was one of those rare days when we actually had no plans!  It felt so good to have the luxury of doing nothing or doing something.  It was so pretty, we needed to be out in it, so after reading the paper and drinking the coffee, we headed out to walk around the lake.

Alex ran to the lake, Brenna biked behind him, but the rest of us rode in the car. 

Wait, I have to go back to the drinking the coffee portion of the day:

Okay, really now?  I just think that's about the cutest cup Starbucks has gifted us.  I think it totally rivals their iconic red Christmas cup.

OH!  And then yesterday, my man loved me so well with this:

Heart-shaped, cream-filled, chocolate-covered looooove!

One of the great joys of a long marriage is getting to a place of knowing how to make the other's heart skip a beat.  And he knows how to make my heart happy.  When I got up Saturday morning and saw that Brad had already made a trip to Lattin's and bought me this?  Oh, I do love the way that man loves me.

Anyway, back to today.  I finally, after over a year of watching this scene, captured a picture of one of the things I love:

Alex runs a lot of miles.  Especially last summer.  Most of them he runs with his cross country team.  But there are a lot of long runs that he needs to do, and he does not like to do those by himself.  So Brenna has put a lot of miles on the bike, with a backpack carrying her brother's water and an occasional house flyer they find on their run, and some money to stop in someplace and get a treat.  They are cute together, and it's one of those pictures in my mind of this season of life that makes me smile.  Brenna will start running with him some this summer getting ready for a little cross country season of her own, so this is a sight with numbered days.  Glad I got a picture of it!

About half-way into our long walk, we met back up with them at the lake...

Brenna had to take care of her itchy feet, so Beth hopped on the bike and those two headed off to Wagners to buy a treat for after the run. 

And the walk was so perfectly peaceful.  We endured enjoyed a photo shoot, we saw some fun creatures enjoying their beautiful day, had one-on-one time with each of our girls, and got to talk and laugh and hold hands.  A simply good day.

This heron was hanging out just off the path.

There were group of these sweet little baby ducks all over the lake today.  They would dive down underwater, completely disappear for about 20 seconds, then one-by-one pop back up, catch their breath and dive back down.  They looked like synchronized swimmers!

This mister and his little lady were having a little private time while the babies played nearby.  Aren't they cute?

Then the mister took his little lady out (or down) for some fine dining!

Brenna tried to take our picture, but she took a sweet forever getting it just right and we couldn't take the brightness!  After a few more failed attempts, we settled for this:

That's better.

Then the photographer wanted a shot of us with the Capitol Building behind us.  We didn't realize she meant literally behind us.  If you lean in and squint, you can see the very top point of it on top of my head.

A little repositioning and she got her shot.  Phew.

A sweet day with my sweet family.  Thankful, deeply thankful, for it.