After a month of rain...

We have been drenched with rain in the last month. We even had a couple of days of snowfall, which is very rare for our area. But after so much rain, we had kind of started to forget what it was like to have a nice, sunny day. Well, that day came on Friday. Not only was it sunny, but it was actually warm enough for t-shirts and flip flops.

I'm back in school this semester, and as part of my 17 credit load I'm doing my part-time student teaching in a 3rd grade classroom. Well, Friday I spent the day celebrating Chinese New Year with a group of 8 and 9 year olds. We made wontons, fried rice, sticky rice, and sliced oranges. It was such a fun day!

As the exhaustion started to hit near the end of the day, the kids were rewarded with some quiet reading time outside, since the sun was out. The teacher and I also went outside and enjoyed the sun while grading spelling tests from that morning. As I was sitting there, with my back to the sun, the warmth seemed to seep through my whole body. It was so beautiful and renewing!

It was right about that moment that she told me I should just go home early and enjoy the beautiful afternoon, so I did. I came home to find Marc busy working and told him I had to kidnap him away from the house for the afternoon. Luckily he complied and I didn't have to take more extreme measures.

We grabbed a blanket, a book, our camera and tripod, and then made a quick stop at the store to buy this:



Then, we headed up to the lake. We were up there about a month ago and found that it was surprisingly very empty. I had never seen it that low in my life. So, we were curious if a month of rain had helped it any.

Here's a panorama of the lake at the beginning of January:


And, here's what it looks like now:


We obviously needed the rain, so we're happy that things are back to normal and the ducks and fish have their lake back. But, on Friday we sure were grateful for a day of warm sunshine. We sat at the edge of the lake for a couple of hours, soaking up the warmth of the sun, taking pictures, sharing the glorious chocolate ice cream, and we even started reading a new book together.

It was one of those simple moments together that I know we'll remember for a long time. I think we need more spontaneous moments like that - getting out, away from work, away from distractions, just being together and enjoying our life together.