We had taken a break from our school work to sit outside in the afternoon sunshine. It was one of those beautiful winter days that just calls to you, to adventure out. We were sitting in the grass just soaking up the sunshine, having a great time goofing off. Ben found a stick and attached some elastic to make a bow and arrow, and we let the chickens out to wander the garden area.
I ran into the house real quick to grab my camera because my phone had just died.
I charged my phone just enough to get it to turn on before heading back out to the garden, and out of habit locked the house on the way out. It was such a quick, thoughtless moment! By the time I was back in the garden I realized I'd locked us out of the house, because my keys were not in my coat. I called Josh with the sliver of phone battery I had and asked what I should do. He suggested I call a locksmith or my dad, who has owned many rentals and changed many door locks. I called my dad first and he suggested I call a locksmith too... and then my phone died mid-conversation!
It was just a silly series of events. So I let the kids know that we were going to have an outdoor adventure day, and figured that my dad and Josh would connect the dots and call each other, and a locksmith would probably arrive soon. Three hours later, as the sun was setting, Josh arrived! Yay! And then the locksmith an hour after that, when Josh realized that I'd never called one. We obviously could've walked to a neighbor's and ask to use their phone, but honestly, I thought we'd have more fun making it an adventure. Plus our garage was still open, so we had all of our camping gear available to us.
The kids made quick work of building a fire pit on our gravel driveway, out of paver stones we weren't using. We found dry wood scraps, and some packing paper from our move, and I found matches in our camping gear, and we were good to go. The kids and I pulled out our camping chairs and pillows. We looked through our garage box of Things to go to Goodwill and pulled out some old games and books. We found some chocolate chips, a granola bar and some root beer. ;) The kids loved that we were "roughing it"!
Many times that day I thought of this great book:
The kids commented on what a fun day that was, and I have to admit I've been dying to go back out there and build another fire, and spend another creative day with them.
We played games...
Played catch...
Drew on wood with ashen sticks...
Served up snacks ;) ...
Grabbed water to have on hand to put out our fire should we need it...
And then this handsome guy showed up and joined our fun.
And the locksmith guy arrived just in time for me to change out of my smokey clothes and run to my exercise class with my girlfriends. :)
The kids and I think it would be fun to spend longer chunks of time outdoors, even if it is still winter. (I sure love my kids and their cheerful dispositions!) It definitely reminded me a little of my childhood, and the adventures that my brothers and I, and our cousins, created for ourselves, winter and summer. Sweet memories!
Speaking of, I'm so thankful for my siblings and that we're still making memories regularly today! We hung out last night & had so much fun playing this game until midnight at Matt & Gina's. Good times. 💚
3 comments:
Why did you need a locksmith once Josh got home? Didn't he have a key to the house?
Great question! I’m embarrassed to admit that I had misplaced Josh’s keys a couple days before this, and he was using our spare car key in the meantime, but didn’t have a house key on him. Since this all happened we now have three spare house keys and we’ve found Josh’s keys. ;)
I loved hearing about this adventure first-hand, and I love seeing the pictures from it! So happy you guys made such a fun day out of this, and just love that we all live close enough to have our late-night game hang-outs so frequently! ♥ :)
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