Vacationing with children always has its own joys and challenges. I love taking my kids to new places. Seeing something with their eyes, for the first time, is an amazing blessing I will never tire of. It makes up for all the work that goes with having kids along for the ride. Gone are the days of care free travel.
This morning, Gideon and I got up well before the sun since we are still on Central time. After some coffee and peanut butter toast, about all we had at the house this morning before our trip to the grocery store, Gideon went down to wake up Daddy and Wash.
I looked out the window and it was snowing. Not huge delicious flakes, but small beautiful fluffs of delight. I ran down all three flights of stairs, we are in the basement of the house, calling for Gideon. We threw on some coats and dashed out to see the snow.
It was wonderful. Gideon and Ries ran around the house, playing in the snow that was already on the ground. My heart was so full of the mountains and winter that I was content in a way that made me want to clutch the moment to remember later when I am back in Houston, sweating and cursing.
There are things that everyone knows about themselves. Things we learn over the course of our lives, about ourselves, about others, and about the world. Almost as long as I have had the memory of contentment, I have known that the mountains is the place my soul lives.
Even so, this is the first time I have been in the heart of the mountains in winter. The views work on me the same way the summer valleys do though they are covered with snow and brown grass and not green waves with flowers. I would not trade this place for any other place. It is not the Grand Tetons specifically, almost any Rocky Mountains will do.
There were other moments in this first day of a week of mountain adventure, but for me, the moment of seeing that first mountain snow eclipsed everything else.
The kids are asleep and it is time to open a 90 Shilling and say slainte to this day.
Good Night, from Jackson Hole, WY
Defying Genetics 