There is a quote from To A Mouse which is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns (1) which says, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” This is so true, and a lesson I am working on being more open to. I can make plans all day long, but things happen such as people canceling or kids getting sick or God might have other plans for me. This was one of those weekends this weekend, but what I ended up with was an experience which was much richer than I expected.
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| The gondola we rode up to the peak. |
We had been planning to make a ski trip to meet some friends for the weekend for at least a couple of months. We researched the hotels, the ski packages, etc. to see where we could get the best deal. We were able to buy and reserve everything we needed from the Internet or phone for the trip, but decided to not get the kids tickets yet since you never know if someone could get sick at the last minute was our thinking.
We were going to leave early on Saturday, ski Saturday and just hang out on Sunday before coming home. Our littlest one, Lauren, started running a fever on Thursday night, and I kept her home from school on Friday. We still left Saturday morning as planned with the thought that if Lauren didn’t feel well enough to ski that I would just hang back with her in the hotel room. She had no fever and said she felt fine so off we made the trip with her.
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| When you can see the grass, it is not prime skiing conditions. |
It was raining when we arrived with temperatures in the 40’s with very slushy, wet snow. Not good skiing conditions! Carl’s friend worked with the manager on duty to change our ski day to Sunday and was able to get three passes for our family to the water park. Madison and I bowed out of the swim fest and went and had coffee at a cafe. We hung out and talked in the hotel room for a bit too.
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| A picture from the chair lift. |
Saturday night Lauren was exhausted from swimming and wanted to go to bed early. I took her temperature before I put her in bed, and it was hovering around 100 degrees. I didn’t think she would be skiing in the morning even though she wanted to. As Lauren literally passed out from exhaustion, Nathan and I were the only ones in the room at that point. For quite a while, we had a really great mother and son conversation about things which were going on in his life.
The next day I asked Carl to bring me some doughnuts and coffee from the lobby before he headed out to ski for the day with the bigger kids. Lauren was still sacked out so I wanted to stay with her in the hotel room. Later when she woke up with no fever, she and I snuggled in our pajamas and ate doughnuts in the bed while we watched a movie on the hotel TV.
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| My precious kiddos, aren’t they cute?! |
It was then that it hit me. About a week ago, we were talking in the car about what would be our perfect day to spend together. We both had imagined getting up and staying in our pajamas, eating doughnuts, and watching one of Lauren’s favorite movies. I looked at her in wonder and said, “Lauren, this is our perfect day. This is exactly what we imagined in the car.” Her eyes lit up, and she squeezed me even tighter.
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| Lauren and I on the ski hill. A great end to our perfect day! |
Lauren and I ended up being able to go up to do a half day of skiing with the family. As I was skiing down the hill, I realized the trip had not exactly been what we had planned. The weather was bad, we had to change our tickets around, and we skied on a different day than we had planned. We had a sick child that we had to work around. In the end though, I was able to spend really solid quality time with each one of my kids in a short amount of time. I had coffee with my daughter and hung out, had a heart felt conversation with my son, and had the perfect date day with my daughter. Sometimes the plans God has for me might be different than my plans, but they are better. I am thankful for that!
“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11, ESV
(1) Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Mouse
This is a great reminder that it is in the little things that make the big difference in the time we spend with our kids. We both know it goes by so fast don't we!! It seems like yesterday that we were taking Lauren and Chloe to preschool!