"Outside"

Lily gets her hands dirty outside by the pond on Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Deetz's beautiful grounds.

Daddy shares his first catch of the day with Lily.

Grandpa Deetz shows Lily the fish that he caught before tossing it back into the pond.

Reclaiming his childhood skills of catching pond animals, Carl shows Lily a baby turtle. Lucky for the turtle, Carl's a big fan of the catch and release program :)

We just returned from a long weekend spent at Carl's grandparents' house in Indiana. Carl has completed his dreaded third year of medical school and has a small break between third and forth year. We decided to take advantage of this time to do our first road trip as a family. It is about 9-10 hours from here to Waterloo, Indiana so this was not a minor endeavor with a 19 1/2-month-old. I have to say though, it went amazingly well. We are so very lucky that Lily is such an easy baby. The plan was to leave the house at 6:30 pm on Friday, drop Terra off at boarding/daycare, and then head down the road to Indiana with an estimated arrival time at 4:00 am. Everything went completely as planned. Lily was awake for about an hour and then fell asleep for the rest of the trip. She woke up once when we stopped, so I moved to the backseat, and she fell fast asleep again when I put my arm around her in the carseat. When we arrived around 4:00 am, we moved her to the bed, and we all slept until around 8:30 am. Carl and I napped with her on Saturday, and we all felt well rested after that.

The trip itself was great, as usual. It was great to get to see the Deetz side of the family which we have not seen in about a year. We spent the weekend catching up, spending lots of unclaimed/unplanned/free/open time in perfect temperatures outside, and enjoying good food with good company. We are already missing Carl's grandma's magic freezer, which seems to contain a never ending supply of homemade frozen meals. It has been my goal for some time to cook in a similar fashion with ready-made meals in store, and I'm feeling re-inspired, so we'll see.

Lily's favorite word on the trip was "outside". She literally could have spent every moment outside and been the happiest girl in town (...or countryside). It made me feel a little guilty that we have no backyard to speak of and just a small deck where we spend time outside. We have already discussed our priorities for our next house, and we re-confirmed that outdoor space is an absolute must, not only for Lily but for Terra too.

Today we are recovering from our travels, but again everything went perfectly on the way home, so we are just planning on taking a nap here or there and catch up with some household chores today. We have no real plans for tomorrow, except for some good old-fashioned family time which Carl and I both enjoy.

Thanks to everyone who made this such a memorable trip; we truly enjoyed it, and it is just what Carl needed. In a way, I really do think that all the Deetz grandchildren need to return to their grandparents' house at least once a year. I think that it holds fond memories for them and continues to be the gathering place where they can rest and relax in beautiful surroundings.