Mountaintop

We didn't waste a second starting summer this year. Nolan missed his very last day of school to go on a road trip to East Texas with Justin to one of my favorite places on Earth...Athens, TX. Now it may not sound like much but there is something so magical about that place. That place is exactly where I met one of my dear and closest friends in 5th grade that I still cherish today. You might remember her from my trip to New York in November.

That place is also where I realized how much life isn't just about myself...it's so much more. Every year when I'd go thinking I was just going to come up with the craziest skit from SNL to re-enact at the talent show or to flirt with the boys, I'd come home with this high-on-life mountaintop experience. I wanted to bottle up that stuff and tell everyone what they were missing out on.

I have so many memories of that place that I can't even come close to naming them all. And I want my kids to have that same experience. Now I know theirs will be different, but I just want them to have that high-on-life mountaintop experience like me. It's not hard to catch, it's contagious in those parts.

To get the kids to just "dip their toes in the water" so to speak, they have a camp called Grand Camp. It's for grandparents to take their grandchildren for the weekend for the rookie campers. Well since it was in the last day of school (or very close to it) it was nearly impossible for my parents to get off work as teachers. So since Justin was in charge of leading music for the camp, he decided to act like a grandpa and take Nolan.

My baby got to experience s'mores for the first time. Ummm, how did I let that happen? That is craziness that my boy is almost 6 years old and trying one for the first time. Shame on me! But maybe it's better that way because it was so special to him that he talked about that ONE s'more for days.



I would talk each night with them and Nolan would hardly take a breath he wanted to tell me so much. Justin said that something came over Nolan at that camp. Our kid, you know the whole a few years ago that was scared of the wind and the one that normally wears 2-3 floaties on every appendage per swimming adventure, was trying new things...and loving it.

 

He soon saw that no one was sporting any floaties and realized that for the first time he could actually touch the bottom of the pool! It's like a whole new world was revealed. He shed those floaties like they were so 2010 and actually put his head under water farther than just his chin. I know, you're thinking, "Big Whoop." No really, it's a big freakin' whoop.

And after each phone call, I couldn't help but think about how fast he's growing up and how me not being there just might the motivating force for him not to be so scared and try this new world.



For days, I heard about canoe rides, songs he sang, and he wouldn't quit bringing up those darn s'mores.


I'd say that we got a really good start on the mountaintop experience.