Simple Pleasures

We stayed home this weekend. I wasn't too thrilled with yesterday (Saturday), though the trip out to the star party should have been a hit. The kids were too tired and I'm not sure just what they were expecting. Even though there were lots of kids there of various ages, ours did not soak into the idea of standing in lines to look through any size telescope to see any kind of stars or planets! For sure they thought the lazer used sparingly by the University Prof was really cool, but he didn't loan it out or even let them hold it. It was a fairly clear sky in the long run and I told them some stories about my experience with some of the constellations, but they were quickly ready to come back home.
Today, after church we decided to just stay put. Louis suggested a trip, but I knew they were all exausted and felt it a better idea to just hang out and maybe play in the pool with them. That turned out well. We let them pick a place for lunch. Afterward, at their request, we watched a Veggie Tales movie, then batted three balls around the pool trying to keep them in the air long enough to justify setting up the volley ball net. We didn't. We made a rule that who ever batted the third ball out of the pool had to go get them all. Eventually the game deteriorated to a variety of face and body pummellings with frequent retrievals. Of course every time someone had to get out to retrieve the balls, they- all three kids and sometimes grandpa- would have to cannonball into the pool in sync. The resulting waves were quite fun.
We decided on a spaghetti supper on the deck with the waterfall and lights on. The girls took turns helping me fix supper while grandpa set stuff up. We lit the torches and had a sweet satisfying supper together. I put the icecream mixture into the icecream freezer right after supper and we all got brainfreeze from eating it too fast. Then just before bed, we put on a recording of the Lord's Prayer and did it in sign language several times. It's a beautiful recording from a multi-artist project called Let's Roll. It was quite an enjoyable end to a very enjoyable day.
Sometimes, the simplest joys surprise us.
The picture is of Louis (pink air mat!) and the girls coming off a short drop last weekend on the Little Missouri, Winding Stair, near Mena AR.