Blame it on the Rain

I guess this can be a sort of "flashback Friday" (although it's Tuesday) since these are pictures of Bode when he was about 8 months old...I showed him these on the computer and he was adament that it was NOT Bode, but baby Keegs...Anywho...

I used to pride myself on being outdoors with Bode in all kinds of weather. He was a hardcore gotta-be-outside baby/toddler and other than naptime, we spent the majority of our days outside. It was really easy in Columbia, surrounded by numerous tot lots, Lake Elkhorn and the playground at Owen Brown. We'd step outside our house, get on the path and walk to and around the lake. We'd spot blue jays and orioles, bunnies and squirrels, the heron on the lake, ducks, geese. Rain, snow, sleet--we were there. I remember during numerous walks taking mental pictures of everything because I just loved that lake and the people we passed and the animals and thinking to myself how much I cherished it. I'm so glad I consciously appreciated it while I lived there. It's interesting to me that now that we are away from that environment--the green and wet of it all (it's very arid here--arid with few trees and the majority of the trees we do have are evergreens and just not the same!) I now realize how connected I felt to nature when surrounded by the trees and animals. I assumed the mountains would be a fair exchange for the trees and water. I love the mountains, but it's just not the same. Proximity, for one thing. Maybe I need to make more of a connection with the mountains and then they will be a better replacement?

It's been awhile since we've really spent a lot of our time outside. It's been a very harsh winter, it's super windy here (the one thing I really can't stand), and, well, I'm tired! I've realized I need to embrace the weather here, wind and all, and make the outdoors a priority once more. Bode and I have better days together when we get outside. It's raining today. I so very much miss the rain! Except, the rain here? NOT like the rain on the east coast. It reminds me of the rain in Utah--I was so excited my freshman year at BYU that it was finally raining. I went out in it with a friend and was shocked by how cold it was--unlike the bathwater warm of Virginia rains! We got a great rainstorm here last night--heavy rain and thunder that woke Bode. I enjoyed going in and out of sleep to the music of the storm. Bode has already been outside to wipe down his Tonka trucks in the backyard but came running back in after a few minutes because it is really cold! (as a side note I was totally impressed that he willingly wiped down the trucks without complaint. Usually anything wet or messy just puts him over the edge so I was excited to see that!). Maybe today we'll go explore the "stream" on the edge of our neighborhood, now that it might have some water in it! Rock-throwing anyone?