Glimpses of a Weekend

Within a 41-hour period of time, Kevin and I took a trip from Sacramento to Columbus, OH, and back again. We left Friday morning and returned Saturday afternoon. It was quite a whirlwind trip! But we’re so glad we were able to go and attend Megan’s senior theatre recital. She was awesome . . . we’re so proud of her! It was also great to see family and old friends as well. Despite the brevity of the journey, we were able to squeeze in a decent visit!

On Monday, Kevin worked from home to make up some work hours after taking Friday off. On lunchtime, though, we thought it would be nice to take a walk. We recently found this fun little trail, near our house that’s part of a wetlands preservation. Kevin remarked how, although he philosophically disagrees with taking private property for such uses, it’s awfully nice that we get to enjoy a little bit of nature in our own backyard! We didn’t get very far, however, because it started to rain. As we stood outside our house, watching the raindrops fall, two little neighbor boys ran up and asked if they could mow our grass. “In the rain?” Kevin asked, incredulously. “Yes!” they replied, with excitement in their eyes and voices. It appeared that these poor boys had nothing to do and were bored because of the school holiday. Kevin, humored by these kids, agreed to let them mow the lawn. (And, to be honest, the lawn desperately needed it!)

As Kevin was pulling out the mower and weed whacker (which, we later discovered, is the “most fun part” of mowing a lawn), one of the little boys turned to me and said, “You guys should have a baby.” After telling him that, actually, we are going to have a baby, he said: “Oh, good. I was going to say something but, you know, some people just get chubby and fat and stuff.” KIDS ARE SO HONEST!!!!

About an hour later, after replacing the twine in the weed-whacker at least three times, our lawn (both front and back) had been mowed and thoroughly whacked. As Kevin was pulling out a dead plant from the backyard, we heard the weed-whacker again buzzing in the front yard. Kevin and I looked at each other, puzzled as to what else they might be cutting off our lawn. To our knowledge, these boys had already weed-whacked everything imaginable. Soon we discovered that, in their earnestness, they decided our landscaping needed a good whacking too.

Oh well, it will grow back again.

Soon the boys, covered in grass clippings and mud, were off to find other neighbors and other lawns to conquer. On their way out of our yard, they turned to us with big smiles on their faces and said, “Thank you so much for letting us mow your lawn! That was SO much FUN!!”