Revelation

It dawned on me the other day that it was doing me no good to sit around on my duff wating for life to happen. Occasionally life does actually happen to us all I suppose, but generally it just kicks up a lot of dust as it races by leaving you with grit between your teeth. Yes, it took 33.5 years for me to figure this out. Hey, some of us are late bloomers. It all started when Jaden came home with an assignment from school. He had to pick a family tradition and tell the class about it, why he liked it, etc. Easy enough. Until I tried to come up with a few from which he could choose. I could only come up with one! Panic.

And so began my quest to chase life down and pounce on it. I'm tired of the grit in my teeth. It gets stuck in my chapstick, too. I hate that.

So, last Friday I decided it would be a neat family tradition to go to Starbucks and have hot chocolate then drive out to Ransom Canyon and see the lights. We had borrowed Grandpa Jerry's cherry red convertible VW bug earlier in the day so Matt says we should bundle up and put the top down to see the lights, too. Brilliant! This definitely has the makings of a first-rate family tradition! To top it all off, Jaden's in his PJ's (from PJ day at school) so we'll just throw that in...kinda like the cherry on top. Perfect. Now if you're a parent, you know exactly how things go when you've planned the perfect family outing. The whining started when the kids discovered we were actually going into Starbucks. "I don't wanna go in! I don't even like hot chocolate. It smells stinky in here! Yeah, what's that stinky smell? Can we just go to the drive-thru?" Growl. Determined to not let grumpy children ruin my perfect family tradition, we bought them hot chocolate anyway and I convinced them (read: threatened them) to take a few drinks so I could snap a few pics for the scrapbook. For the record, my hot chocolate was superb. Have you tried the salted carmel hot chocolate? Yum.

Jaden and Angie enjoying Starbucks hot chocolate. Doesn't he look like he's having the time of his life??

Matt wasn't grumpy. He drank his hot chocolate without any threats at all.

The kids did finally perk up when we left the 'stinky' Starbucks and headed to the canyon. One of the radio stations was playing all holiday tunes and and everybody was in a pleasant mood until we put the top down..."I don't want the roof off...it's cold! Why does HE get a hat and I don't? Can we just go to Grandma and Papa's? Why did you throw my hot chocolate in the trash?" Sigh. The lights were beautiful this year in spite of the whining (which did mostly cease once we got going). It was so fun to hear them naming off everything they saw..."Look! There's Rudolph! I see snowmen! Eeeewwww! I see Mr. and Mrs. Santa kissing!" So maybe my new little tradition wasn't quite perfect. That's okay. It's the going and doing and memory making that matters.

On the way home, the boys literally fell over and konked out. Aaahhh. Perfect at last.