the golden years

I read a quote recently about these days being the golden years, and how we wish we had known these days were the golden years so we would enjoy them more, instead of them just sliding right by and us not knowing that it would never be the same again.

Oh, the fun we have had together. 

In the summer months, we went somewhere fun every single week.  Sometimes it would be the zoo, or the children's museum, the Pink Palace, a movie, a park, a trip to a waterpark downtown.  It didn't matter what we did, we all had a blast.  Quality time is our love language, needless to say. 

This was a day at the zoo, and what I remember most from this day was the butterfly exhibit.  The boys loved that exhibit and feeding the butterflies.  We spent what felt like hours inside that hot terrarium area. 

I mentioned before that Dad probably started coming over to help me, and help me he did.  When the boys were all in elementary school together, every single May, he would help me out by attending Field Day with me.  If I hadn't had him to help me, I would have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off, because they were never together.  One kid would be at one end, and the other at the opposite end.  We perfected this, though, and by our last year of doing that together, he had a lawn chair to sit in and an umbrella as shade.

We didn't have a lot of money, though, and had it not been for him doing these fun things with us, the boys would have missed out.  He always paid for our little excursions to the movies, or the zoo, or the children's museum.  I'm so thankful to him for that.  I know the boys are, too, because most of their childhood is wrapped in memories with Dad in them.