Memorial Day

I'm a nature girl. You wouldn't know it by looking at me, but I'm definitely a nature girl at heart. There's something about God's earth that moves my spirit and soul. I can sit on a beach and feel surrounded by His Presence. I can walk around a park and next to a stream and feel at such peace. I craved that. I needed that. So I planned it.

I almost gave up on our Memorial Day weekend. These past few months have been so busy that our weekends are full of running, cleaning and absolutely no playing. But I needed to play - badly. Because, remember, I'm running out of time. :-)

Saturday was busy. As usual. Sunday was full of sickness. Neither Will nor I felt great. And to top it all off, both days were full of rain. So my hopes were pinned on Monday alone. I made my plan and announced to everyone that we were going on a picnic. I bought a kite for Will and a glittery baton for Ann Catherine. (Weird, I know, but she picked it out.) I bought sandwich stuff, chips, drinks and big, huge, fat watermelon. I was ready.

Monday morning, we woke up to cloudy skies. I had a panicked child on my hands who announced that the clouds were too dark and that it might rain so there was no way she was going on a picnic outside. Brian kind of cast a worried look of his own at the sky and suggested that maybe we move the picnic inside in the living room. I announced that, just like the day of my wedding, IT WOULD NOT RAIN!! It wasn't allowed to. And darn it, if we had to sit in the car in the middle of the park and eat our picnic, then that's exactly what we were going to do. So we filled the cooler with ice, packed our lunches, grabbed our outside toys and headed for the door.

One of my favorite memories of my childhood is going on picnics. OK - I admit it - they weren't always great memories for me. I remember my stomach churning as I looked for bees, butterflies, and any other creepy flying bug which might come near me. I remember worrying about ants in my food. I remember looking for snakes in the grass. But while I remember those as the start of most of my childhood picnics, that was never the ending. The ending was always the blessing. It was full of laughter, relaxation, fun and, best of all, NATURE.

My realization that my life is passing by much too quickly has filled me with a sense of nostalgia. And it's making me look at the life I'm creating and the childhood memories I'm giving to my children. And it made me embarrassed. I wanted more for them. I want better for them. I don't want their memory banks to be filled of days where they sat on the couch and watched cartoons. I don't want it to be filled of being stuck in the house with only an occasional little field trip into the front yard. I want my kids to see the world! Well, OK, the world couldn't be conquered in one determined day - especially when Daddy had to head for his nighttime job that evening. So I found directions to the next best thing - a local state park.

I had heard that Tennessee is always winning awards for having some of the best state parks in this country. I've been wanting to visit a few of them for a while so I headed to their website to see if I could find something close enough that Brian could make it home in time to get ready for work. I was blown away to find out that Henry Horton State Park is only 30 minutes from our house. So that's where we headed.

While not the largest (or prettiest) park I've ever been in, it was still a very sweet little park. We found the kids' playground nearest the entrance and let the kids play for a while before pulling out the cooler and heading for a nearby picnic table. After lunch, we decided to drive around the park to see what was there. I knew from reading the park's description that there was a river or lake nearby so I wanted to see if we could find it. Little did we know that just around the corner from where we had eaten our lunch was a long drive that was full of picnic tables...right next to the Duck River. We walked along the river for a little bit and then drove some more. Around the next little corner we discovered that they had a large, Olympic-sized swimming pool where we could swim for only $4 per person! Too bad we left our swimsuits at home! We then decided to explore the rest of the park on foot and walked up to the park restaurant, inn, lodge and found a small walking trail where we learned about local trees native to Tennessee. Ann Catherine was thrilled to find a Tulip Poplar tree. She had just learned in school that the Tulip Poplar is our state tree.

And the sweetest moment of all from that whole afternoon? Glancing behind me as Ann Catherine and I walked along the trail, and finding my husband and son slowly walking along the trail, hand in hand, simply enjoying the moment.

Life can't get better than that.