Making memories

Money is tight and we've decided to not really take a vacation this year and just do as much as we can locally. The boys have really gotten into fishing this summer. We have a lake by our house and they are there nearly every day and nearly every day they catch something. So we decided last week to try saltwater fishing. Mom was pretty excited at the prospect of actually being able to eat something they caught. (Never mind the fact that none of us has the slightest clue how to clean and filet a fish.. oh wait!! Youtube!!) Anyhoo, we set out with grand plans and high hopes. I brought my friend's son with us, whom my boys get along very well with, and she watched the girls at her house. I went to WalMart first to get bait where I came up empty, so the boys reminded me of the bait shop we always pass on the way to our favorite beach. We stopped and picked up some frozen squid, and we also encountered a man who told us about a better fishing spot on a pier. We left the bait shop with squid in hand and as soon as I started driving, a very loud sound reached our ears, accompanied with the van feeling very strange as I drove. I wasn't sure what was wrong; I thought something was caught under the tire or I was dragging something, when the boys assured me I had a flat tire. Thankfully, I was able to pull into an empty parking lot right across the street and thankfully, for the first time in my life, my darling hubby who I would feel lost without, had thought to sign us up for AAA a few months ago. So we called and were informed that the wait would be 1 hour. I had 5 boys with me in the sweltering heat... an hour? Well, it just so happened that this particular day happened to be free slurpee day at 7-11 and there just "happened" to be a 7-11 about a block away. So we walked and got our free slurpees, pulled out our beach chairs and sat in the shaded parking lot waiting for AAA. The boys just played and joked around and I enjoyed watching them. The man came, put my donut on, and we still had time to make it to the beach, though we had to change the location since we were delayed. We decided to try the pier that the man at the bait shop had told us about. We get there and find out it costs money to go on the pier to fish and we don't have enough. So after standing there for some time and trying to figure out who should go on the pier and who should stay, the man told us to try the alternative, the docks across the street, which we did. Well, our grand hopes of catching some fish (and my grand hopes of eating them!) were not realized. But after spending some time trying, we went back to the beach and I just sat there and watched those boys frolic and play in the water, having the time of their life. It was one of those snapshots in life that you just want to remember and hold onto. These days of youth and my full nest are flying by at a dizzying speed, so I am all the more thankful for these moments, when I can watch my children enjoy just being young and free, without a care in the world. At that moment my heart was never more full, pregnant with more than I can express in words. It was a day I will never forget, a day etched in all our memories. This is one of those rare moments in my life where the whole thing just really felt like a blessing. I mean, we sat in chairs in the shade of an empty parking lot while we enjoyed free slurpees and we were still able to enjoy fishing and swimming and each other.This is a cell phone picture and not a very good one, but it captures the moment well. Thanks for all the little tokens of Your amazing love that day, Father.
Thank you for the memories, and thank you for my children.