laughter

I often find myself daydreaming about things I will do one day when I don't have young children... like read a book in the afternoon... go shopping for an entire day without them... sleep through the night, uninterrupted... travel to a foreign country with a small suitcase... use the bathroom alone... Catching my thoughts in places like these, it is tempting to envy retirement and empty nest days as a time of freedom.  In reality, I simply have a bad case of brown-grass-syndrome.

On the tail end of three wonderful family vacations, Christian and I agree that we have never laughed so much at any other stage of our lives.  Never before have we sung so many silly songs, tickled so many knees and bellies, laughed at so many bad jokes, told so many funny stories, or giggled spontaneously so many times in a day.  Can it get any greener than this?


What, exactly, are we laughing about, you ask?  Anything and everything. You might not think it is nearly as funny as we do, but some of the expressions in these vacation photos had me rolling. Feel free to laugh along side of me as I recap a few memories from our most recent trio of travels.


First Stop:  New Orleans to celebrate my younger brother's graduation from dental school!

One thing about children is that at any given moment what they are feeling is written all over their faces.  These two girls were troopers but the significance of posing in a picture with two great-grandmothers was completely lost on them.  As disappointing as it is to have 4 smiling adults and 2 grumpy children in a photo that cannot be duplicated, I can laugh at the outcome.

 The most special part about our trips over the past month was the sister-bonding... 

Welcome to Gators-ville, Louisiana!

The baby alligator doesn't bite... yet.

The next one cracks me up.  Sommer fussed for most of the time on our hot and humid swamp tour.... except when the wind was blowing in her face.  She could hardly keep her eyes open pointing directly into the wind, but at least she was smiling!

Second Stop:  Yosemite camping in the R.V. with my parents and brother.  A cold front came through including a torrential downpour - we were oh so thankful to have the R.V.

Does anyone know who the man with the mustache is holding my baby?

Third Stop: Clearlake for a restful (mostly) summer vacation. The real treat was that my entire immediate family joined us.

Someone has recently begun to specialize in silly faces...

This is the face of a big sister who does not want to share the swing with her little sister.  I was cracking up as I took the picture... one day she might think it is funny too.

Those pretty much sum up our wonderful, short, chaotic, exhausting, kid-friendly, nap-deprived, family-centered, enjoyable, date-less, but still wonderful vacations.

With all of this fun going on, who has time to blog?  Apparently not me.  I do miss capturing my thoughts and recording snippets of our lives, but instead of lamenting the hobbies and projects I just can't keep seem to keep caught up with, I am just going to enjoy this season of laughter with my family.  The grass may never be this green again.