Camping and almost hitting the earth's core I think

 

 

Both of my littles have birthdays in May.

 

And since we are now in a home away from what feels like home, with no family or friends within a thousand mile radius, we decided to celebrate them by going on our first family trip since we moved to MT two months ago.

 

By the way, it was my second camping trip ever. I'm getting sorta good at it. See my s'more? It has been refined to this magical combination: dark chocolate, coconut covered marshmallows, and cinnamon grahams.

 

These guys are camping naturals. They are in their element in the wild.

 

 

One thing I'm not so good at is called going inside of a mountain, underground for a long, long tour. Oh, granted, it was a crazy amazing natural phenomenon - these caverns - but I have psychological issues from living in CA for my whole life. If MT had earthquakes, I'd have been out. I used to get nervous sitting under a freeway overpass in traffic for more than a few seconds.

 

But mind over matter. Just keep swimming, as Dory says. I totally survived the center of the earth. What was weird was that the deeper we descended - oh, and there were zillions of steps down into clammy darkness - the colder it got. Which was surprising, since I am pretty the earths' core is still made of molten lava.

 

(That pic below, top right, is the mountain that I was inside of for God knows how long. From the outside.)

 

And then check out the archery action. I secretly - well, it's not a secret anymore - want to be a really awesome archer. Like way before Katniss and Merida and every little girl with a braid wanted to be one. So since my little guy got a cool set for his birthday, I've been waiting for the perfect moment to hijack it. And hijack it I did. After a little practice, I came up with some challenges. Featured below are my husband and I attempting to best each other. You had to run from a certain tree, leap off the orange rock, release the arrow while in the air, and hit the boxes. It was hard. My husband beat me. Darn it. It was probably because of his pretty sweet leap as seen below.

 



On the way home, we saw this sign off the side of the road.

 

I don't know if the sign-maker had an agenda of any kind. But it did remind me of the reason my weekend away with my family was so fun.

 

Choice has a lot to do with it. It was fun partly because we chose to live. Not just spectate. I chose to plan a camping trip (even though I have little experience, and even less confidence with the whole camping scenario). We chose to go into that crazy mountain. I chose to push down my temptation to freak out and instead enjoy God's hidden creativity. (How many other mountains house the same beauty just because He wants them to?) I chose to get up and shoot arrows with my family. I chose to get outside my comfort zone, more than a couple times. And stuff totally worked out. Memories were made. We had a great time.

 

 

It doesn't always happen that way. Obviously. Last week, I was choosing good things, and some of them just didn't work out. People were disappointed. That's life too. Unpredictable. A good choice does not guarantee a good outcome.

 

But I keep choosing, always silently celebrating my God-given free will. I can choose how I want to live. And I can choose Him. No matter which things do or don't go my way, He is where I always find real life.

 

And life is a beautiful choice.

 

Hope you all had a great weekend.