The One With Five More Minutes

March 2-5, 2018
For the first time in a long time – and for another long time to come, this past weekend was calm.  Not a ton of stuff going on – just a few things to keep us entertained.  And the sun was out, cool, early spring temperatures, and lots of time to just “be.”  It was very relaxing, and very welcomed!

Emma came to Stillwater Friday evening to spend the weekend with us.  She got to town after we had gone out to grab some Chick-fil-A before taking Jake on an adventure with his friends.  She spent the evening playing with Finn – her biggest fan – and signing in to her family’s Netflix account so we could ALL binge our favorite shows on our favorite devices.  She got to surprise Jake by going with dad to pick him up from “Open Gym” at Youth Fitness Zone later in the evening.

Saturday was an easy morning.  Lara drove herself (well, chauffeured me, technically – but I went right back home) to Couch Park for the Pioneer Baseball team’s home opener about 11:00am, and the rest of us joined her for the first pitch at noon.  It was kind of windy, and that kept us pretty cool.  Emma enjoyed talking to friends she saw around the ballpark, and Lara worked from the dugout for the 7 inning game.  Our Pioneers came up ONE RUN short, but it was a beautiful day of sunshine and home opener baseball.

Sunshine and Baseball (Jake was at a friend's birthday party)

The rest of the afternoon was more just resting and relaxing.  Lara left for a couple hours to go walk the 3 mile trail around Boomer Lake with Colby, while the rest of just took advantage of a last day.

Sunday, was much the same.  Catching up, watching TV, playing games.  We went to church at Life.Church at 4:00pm - where I forced them to take a picture!  If they are all 4 in one place, I try to capture it!  I know the days of them being together are getting fewer and farther between!  After church, we took Emma back to Orlando so she could start her week.  And, in the spirit of tradition – and keeping the big family going forward – we had our usual Sunday Night Family Meeting in the car on the way home.  Went over the calendar for next week, checked everyone’s grades, and talked about out highlights of the week gone by.  Prepared for the week to come – even though SOMETHING always changes last minute!

It was Windy.  And Finn is 6.

This laid back, put your feet up weekend reminded me, it’s still going so very fast – even if we have time to enjoy it more.  We weren’t rushing from here to there and eating in the car and hoping everyone got homework and laundry done!  But, we were wishing the weekend away in other ways.  Just waiting for the next thing.  When the next thing is still coming WAY TOO SOON!  And as if the turning of the calendar pages isn’t enough, the song “Five More Minutes” by Scotty McCreedy is on REPEAT on the country radio stations around here.  It has a line that says:

Time rolls by the clock don't stop

I wish I had a few more drops

Of the good stuff, the good times 

Oh but they just keep on flying

Even on slow, lazy weekends like this past one, I still wish I had 5 more minutes.  To hug them.  To soak it all in.  To really LISTEN to that rambling story about friends I don’t really know and inside jokes form class that I’ll never get.  A few more drops of watching them with their brothers.  With each other (I hear you talking in that room after you “go to bed”).  With us.  It is still going WAY too fast!  And this blog is still my feeble attempt to write it all down.  To try and hold on for Five More Minutes…