Throwing rocks in the water

It was Wednesday, March 31st, 2010. I had the day off and wanted to figure out some things to do in order to pass the time. It's been a strange winter with the cold lingering all the way till the end of March. Here in Atlanta area it seemed strange to have our last snowfall in March, when ordinarily it NEVER snows at all!

So an off day for me in the past might have been sleeping in a little and later on sitting in front of TV, flipping through the channels. Today I wanted to do something different and have a little fun. With the economy like it is, it's hard to justify going out to a movie or anything else that costs money, so I wanted to keep it simple.

Emily, our little girl, was at preschool and it was just me and my wife. We had some time to spend together and later we went to lunch taking advantage of the "two for one" special at the local Ruby Tuesdays. I had the steak and lobster fest and my wife has shrimp and steak. She doesn't eat meat, so I ended up having 2 steaks, lobster, broccoli, mushrooms and a salad bar! I had to go home and digest some of that food and soon became a little bored. I told my wife, "I'm going to go and get Emily, after I go to the Post Office." She said that would be fine.

After I arrived at Emily's school, I noticed just how warm it had gotten during the day. I had to keep the sun from blinding me as I walked into the building. I signed the log and went back to Emily's classroom. There I found her sitting on the floor with the other kids playing. She was excited to see me and wouldn't quit talking all the way back to my Jeep. I got in the Jeep and just HAD to turn the station to Emily's favorite, MICHAEL JACKSON! She just loves his songs, so I had to burn a disc with several MJ tunes on it. She sings and swings her feet all the way back to the house.

Once back at the house we were looking for something to do, so I asked Emily if she wanted to go for a walk" She said YES of course, so we dressed appropriately and headed down the street to the entrance of the trail at the end of our road. Sometimes as we enter into this wooded area there are a few deer drinking from the stream, but this time there were none. So we just walked along and looked at the scenery and listened to the birds overhead whistling away. Then we found the afternoon attraction I was looking for. The water was running smoothly in the creek and there on the shore there were all kinds of rocks. The rocks were every shape and size. Emily loves to pick up rocks, so we dug in, literally!

Soon we were heaving the rocks one at a time into the water. Then it became TWO at a time! Of course I had to show her how to skip a rock on top of the water. It's been a few years since I've done that, but it's like riding a bike. After making splash after splash we decided to make a collection of nice ricks to take home with us. I wanted to get the ones that looked like crystals and there were lots of them, so we made our picks. Soon we had about 5 or 6 nice crystal rocks to take home. I tried to get Emily to carry a couple of the really small ones, but I ended up carrying all of them, gladly!

All in all it was a beautiful day spending it with my 3 1/2 year old daughter. Sometimes the simplest things in life are by far the best things in life. There was one problem however, she really didn't want to leave (me either). See the following picture.