Appreciating the smaller things.

Today has reminded me of all I have to be thankful for, nothing special was planned for today, nothing special happened today but it is days like today that remind me to enjoy every moment. It started with an early morning run (a run that when I woke up was dreading doing, it was early, my legs were tired and so was I) but I wiped the sleep from my eyes, stepped quietly over Colt (who had come in to our room in the middle of the night wanting to sleep with us, he ended up in his sleeping bag on the floor), dressed and stepped outside. The first mile my body was telling me to go back to bed, I had planned to run 5 miles this morning at an 8:15ish mile pace and at this point I was going to be happy just to finish the 5. Then something amazing happened, our good friends Darin and Becky live about 1/2 mile from our house and all of a sudden I hear a "Hi Carolyn" and I turn around and Darin is out on a run (he is training for the Walla Walla marathon) we run the next mile together and I find myself quickening my pace to keep up with him, we engage in some fun conversations about triathlons and running and then part ways at the 2 mile mark of my run (I look down at my garmin and I see my pace at 6:34 - did I mention Darin is one heck of a runner), at this point I am feeling awake, alive and happy to be running and so I go for it. I finish my 5.62 miles with an average pace of 7:34 per mile. I was one hot, sweaty, tired mess but it felt so good when I was done. 

I get home and quietly open the door to our house since most mornings when I return everyone is still in bed, and stepping into the entry way I see Colt, Dave and Jax sitting on the couch eating their bananas and milk (the boys not Dave). Dave tells me that when he woke up this morning he could hear laughing coming from Jax's room, he peeks into the room and sees Colt sitting in the crib with Jax and they are playing and laughing over and over. Dave watched for awhile and then went into the room and asked Colt what they were doing. Colt's repsonse was "when I woke up Jax was crying so I was playing with him so he wouldn't cry." I love these 2 little boys.

I made baked oatmeal with fresh peaches for breakfast and we sat at the table as a family of four enjoying our yummy breakfast and engaging in some fun conversations. After breakfast while I cleaned and did some laundry Colt and Jax played together in the family room. Jax adores Colt and Colt is a really good sharer and helper to Jax so it works out nicely and gives me some time to get stuff done. We had some errands to run and as I am leaving the house I make a quick phone call to my lender for my student loans. I applied for a forgiveness grant in June and I was still waiting to hear back about it, when the lady on the phone told me I had a zero dollar balance I was literally jumping around and screaming through the house. Colt followed doing the same and Jax just started laughing at us. Since I have taught math at a low income high school for the last 5 years I was eligible for up to $17,000 in loan forgiveness, I think I had close to $11,000 left on my student loan and it was all paid off as of this past month. This couldn't have come at a better time with me only working part-time next year.

After our errands we met Dave at Quiznos to celebrate, both the kids were happy and well behaved and when Colt said " I have an idea, lets go to BRIGHTS" that was all the convincing I needed. We headed over to our favorite little candy store, Colt picked out 4 small pieces of candy and shared each piece with his brother giving him really small bites that he can chew easily. Next door to Brights is the cutest toy store called Inland Octopus, it reminds me of what toy stores used to look like before we had all the big supermarket type places take over. We had fun walking around and looking at all the cute toys, Dave told Colt he could pick out one toy and here is what he picked:

Dragon Fighter!!

Jax wanted in on the action too.
After all the fun both the boys are not napping, Colt has been running around in his dragon fighter gear all afternoon and they will probably be extra cranky tonight. It doesn't matter though, for today I was reminded just how sweet life is. Its all about the small things that make me happy. A husband I adore more than anything, 2 boys who fill my life with such joy and a God who loves us all.