Playing Again

I started this blog years ago as a way to process life with my family and friends.  Since then, with each passing year and as my blog has grown in readership, I’ve shared less and less about my family.  It wasn’t my intention but I just felt like “who wants to read about my life” like our weekend trip to the market, or see pictures of the drawings my son made for me…

But as of late, I decided that I wanted to share more of these little things mostly to keep in touch with friends and family but also because I need to do this for myself.

If you personally know me, you know that I try to be the real deal, mostly because I’m not really good at faking my way through things.  So, my hope by sharing the little things, is you’ll realize that I don’t just write about playing but I actually do try to do the things I write about.

Our kids didn’t have school on Thursday and Friday so we took advantage of that time to play. Unfortunately, my husband who is the principal of their school did have to go into work so we didn’t have the opportunity to get away but that didn’t keep us from playing.

We finally mustered enough courage or maybe I should say mustered enough energy, to bike to the park from our house. Usually, on Sundays we try to go to the park. I usually run and my boys and husband ride their bikes.  On these days, we just drive to the park, but for some reason I had the grand idea to do otherwise. It actually wasn’t that hard but it required lots of patience with our 4 year old.  He was a bit timid about being so close to cars on the street even though we were on the cyclist path. The picture above is going up a hill. Biking can be a lot of fun, I highly recommend you try it as a family.

My good friend Beth invited us to play at a little entertainment center near us–Mr. Joy’s.  I thought it was for our kids to play while we read books and chatted but it turned out that she was hoping we ALL played. It was so much fun and my kids absolutely loved showing me how their little world works.  I was so glad we did.

Though I must say, after experiencing one of these entertainment centers, kids really have to be brave to do some of the activities. I went down the scariest slide in the world, and survived to tell about it. Seriously, it was scary. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of it but you’ll have to take my word for it. But I spent most of my time on this colorful slide that my 4 year old absolutely loved going down. They also had air ball guns that shot out plastic balls. That was hilariously fun and somewhat painful. Then funniest thing was to watch both of our oldest boys color coding their “missiles” and neatly organizing the baskets you place them in.

Here’s a picture of my friend Beth with her son going down the slide at Mr. Joys. Our boys are similar in age and our hubbies are friends, lucky us– we not only get to play together as women but also as a family.

Here we are at the end of our summer camping trip. Camping is one of the best activities to enjoy as a family, it’s a wonderful time to unplug, enjoy each other and get outside.

My boys are really into baseball and though it takes half of our Saturday, we happily go and cheer them on in hopes that they grow in their sportsmanship, learn their strengths and weaknesses and have fun along the way.  My oldest is holding the Ecuadorian flag.  Don’t worry this time I didn’t cry during the Star Spangled Banner song, remember that embarrassing story. I’m so thankful for the wonderful people who keep baseball going here, it’s such a blessing and treat for my kids.

Later, I took my friend Bekah shopping and we had a little too much fun doing it.  I love dress up time! Don’t you love our shoes?  Hers were the best–yup, they’re gold sequins.

At some point during our break we had friends over for some family traditions. Here are our kids enjoying one of the traditions in this country–guagas de pan and homemade colada morada. Beth came over with her kids and some friends and we spent the afternoon cooking together.  I made the dough and the kids stuffed and shaped their little guagas de pan–it’s basically sweet bread.

Note, this was a very messy activity with so many little hands involved, but I went into it knowing it would be. I tried to go with the flow but once in a while I had to guide them to keep them from pouring flour all over themselves. Once the bread was baked the kids decorated it with icing.  I share about this Ecuadorian tradition in more depth here.

This weekend was such a wonderful reminder to me about the importance of play in our life as adults.  Beth at some point shared with me an article she was reading that basically talked about how we can do one of two things in life–engage in activities that either bring quick relief like watching tv or engage in activities that bring restoration to our souls like play, taking in nature, reading our bible, worshipping, etc…  I’ll share the link with you once I get it from her but it sounds like a much needed read.

It was also a weekend filled with the lovely people God has brought into our lives.  Today, I got to enjoy lunch with some sweet and fun ladies in our community. Last night, we had a fun time out at the school farm with friends–just catching up, taking in the fresh air and as always there’s good food to be enjoyed. It just makes my heart so happy and content to know we walk this journey not alone but with some precious friends. Now we just need to have our extended family near us and life would be perfect. 🙂