Yellowstone

As evidence by the last photo, the Meads clearly cannot take a bad photo. Ahem, moving on. As part of our nonstop tour de fun we ventured northward to Yellowstone/Island Park this past July. We hung out with our cousins and even our faraway friends from Singapore! Rode four wheelers, ate an obscene amount of smores and had ridiculous levels of fun.

My ability to 'go with the flow of motherhood' grew exponentially on this trip. Highlighted by the following experience; a late afternoon four wheel ride took us to a bridge where the beauty of the river below beckoned to the children. Hearing their wishes with my mothers heart we stopped. Shoes were kicked off as the children waded into the water. I sat by on the bank enjoying their play immensely, my feet dangled contently in the cool water.

The thought, "this is a perfect moment," was just to form into a full fledged feeling when it began. Horse flies. For those of you who aren't lucky enough to know exactly what the meaning and implication those little buggers carry, let me fill you in. A horse fly will not only land on you, but, once they do so, they try to BORE INTO you. Clothing? No matter, they just bite their way through that little barrier, no prob blem o.

Pinch yourself. As hard as you can and that will give you an idea of the tiny beast, the horse fly.

So, there I was, being assaulted by one of mother nature's cronies and I had a choice to make: stay and suffer for the sake of my children's fun or leave. Neither option suited me so I did what any awesome person would do (jealous of my self-esteem?) I jumped into that river with all of my clothes on. The children had all by this point managed to "fall" in as well. Shocker.

I leaned back on my elbows, tilted my head back into the river, enjoyed the feeling of my hair moving with the gentle current, looked up at the sky and picked right back off where my thought had left off, "this is the perfect moment."

Going with the flow and loving every minute. Well, maybe not the ten minute ride back to the cabin while soaking wet but those two previous hours, yeah, those were pretty awesome.