Home Improvement

Since having a child, there have been many changes to my free time.  I no longer count on spending the whole day hiking or kayaking many miles.  I'm content with a family-orientated morning activity, home for lunch, nap/rest time, followed by a shorter afternoon family activity.  These are what my weekends are like.  Although for the first year I still longed for the old more active and adventurous days, I now have forgotten that life and I enjoy doing things at Mathieu's pace and showing him the world and seeing things through his eyes.

This type of perspective has given birth to a new activity:  Home improvement projects.   In my old life, I was content adventuring in the outdoors all day and just get by with what we had at home.  But now that we spend a lot more time at home, Sue and I are more interested in home improvement projects.  We even have gone to Home Depot a few times to buy lumber and screws.  This was a big deal! 

I'm very proud of the our woodworking project we have just completed.  It is a new bench with shoe storage to go right at our front door.  In true family spirit, this project involved Sue, Mathieu, and Pepere (Sue's dad).

Mathieu loves helping with any project. He enjoys bringing me the pieces of wood or screws or tools.  A few times he secured a piece of sand paper and got busy with it.  Sue taught him (and me!) about sanding "with the grain," and our bench is smooth, smooth.

Pepere is very experienced in these type of projects, and so it was great to work on the project and learn so much from him.  The end product looks great!  Better than anything we would buy and fits perfectly in our home!

 Sometimes it's hard not to write in cliche, but when one is watching her child grow up, the cliches just flow.  Dave and I delight in being Mathieu's parents.  What an amazing gift it is to watch someone accomplish something or discover something for the first time and then strive to perfect it!  A simple example: Jumping.  For a long time, Mathieu's feet never left the ground.  He'd try to jump and get as far as a bend in the knees.  Then, he was able to do little jumps. Now, he's airborne. 

Trip to North Georgia Mountains

We traveled 6 hours in the car to the beautiful North Georgia Mountains.  Mathieu wanted to read the map and give directions.

At Amicalola Falls State Park, we started the Appalachian Trail!  It was a tough 2.5 mile hike along a creek and up stairs to the top of a water fall.

PBJ break on the trail

Just this section was 425 steps.  The previous section was another 180 steps!  We told Mathieu that is 3 lighthouses!  It really was strenuous.  As you went up you, saw less and less people.  So many people saw Mathieu and said, "What a trooper!"

Coming down a different trail.  No matter where we were, Mathieu was always looking for water into which he could throw stones or sticks.