Just an ordinary day

There are days that are just worth it.  Worth the trouble of getting it all done or letting it wait while you play a little.  Worth the effort of holding the fort down while Dad is away.  Worth the entertaining of little people.  Some days are just a little bit special.  Nothing really amazing happened today but the ordinary things can sometimes be fantastic all by themselves.  We had a pay it forward kind of day. 

First, our neighbor helped me air up the wading pool.  Oh, it has been hot here lately.  I am not complaining because I love the heat.  Summer is the best! But, we could use more than a little bit of rain around here.  I  just knew it was going to be another scorcher when I was running the swamp cooler as soon as my feet hit the floor today.  It was so nice of our neighbor to bring over his air compressor and pump that pool up so I could fill it with crisp cold water to soak our toes in.  Just after I got the water going, one of our former students came by and brought a very special surprise to our littlest girl...It was Molly, her American Girl doll, and a bunch of special things that went with her. Wow!  What a treasure for our almost six year old.  She hasn't stopped playing with her all day. She and her brother dubbed today Molly's Gotcha Day and wrote the date down in the little journal that came with her.  So much fun!  As Kaitlyn passed down her doll and showed each piece of clothes and other items, she shared more than a toy, she shared her memories with our girl and she shared her heart.  What an incredible gift.  It made me think of the last scene in Toy Story 3 where Andy is passing down his special toys...in fact, it was exactly like that only better.  It was a little bit magical.

Then, this afternoon we took what I was thinking would be a quick trip over to see the kids' Gram at the assisted living center where she lives.  After chatting with her for a little bit, we headed out, only to be stopped by Mary, another resident, who called us out of the hall into the activity room where she was hanging out with several other residents.  We met Mary earlier this week...I wasn't sure she remembered us but she so wanted to visit with my kids.  She reminded us of her name and then asked the kids to dance.  You see earlier this week when we met Mary there was a pianist in the common area that was playing some fun old tunes.  The kids ended up doing a little ballroom dancing with each other.  It was so cute and funny seeing them twirl around with each other.  They had fun doing it and the ladies sitting around watching them thought they were adorable.  It made their day.  So today they did a quick dance and we said goodbye to Mary and her friends, smiles all around.  We passed through their lovely courtyard and made it to the end only to run into Shammy, the 13 year old  yellow lab and her owner.  Shammy loves kids and my kids love her.  We spent several minutes petting and loving on Shammy and visiting with her owner.  What a sweet lady.  After saying goodbye to Shammy, we headed back inside to check out and we ran into Duke.  Duke is another old pup who's part blue heeler.  His owner told us today that he is 14 years old.  Today Duke was hanging out with Ivan, a part basset part dachshund.  What a cute dog he is!  The kids walked them both around the room on their leashes and scratched their tummies.  I visited with their owners, both former teachers and had the best time chatting with them.  Finally, after about an hour from when we arrived, we signed out.  On the way to the car, my almost nine year old boy said that this was his favorite place to go in all of Santa Fe.  He said the best part about it was playing with the dogs and helping the people to smile.  I love that.  I had to agree with him.  It is a pretty special place.

Tonight we took a little drive around our neighborhood, saw the beautiful sunset and chatted about what a great day we had today.  We came home and the kids put Molly to bed.  They tucked her in and then we read the first chapter of her first book.  Just an ordinary ending to an ordinary day.  One I probably won't soon forget.