Memorial Box-Bucket and Sunglasses

This post is about exceeding expectations. Where to start? A year ago (for my birthday)Tim bought me a very special gift of a glass box, including some special "trinkets" to place inside. We were copying some blogger friends who created a "memorial box": a place to put physical reminders of the ways God had worked in their lives. A living memorial of hope and faith, something to pass on to their children, and yet also be a frequent reminder of Today's story as it is being written. I have written several stories on this blog over the last year, all labeled with "memorial box". But the stories started dwindling, and Lucy started taking shorter and fewer naps, and only essential things got done. We've had some decent sized personal stressors the last few months, and frankly some things we don't really want to remember but can never forget. Some things I'm still wondering how it's all going to turn out, how it's going to be summarized to put into my memorial box....but for now those stories are on the back burner.

Last night, my 38th birthday, Tim presented me with a pink bag filled with brightly colored tissue paper wrapped gifts. A wallet, pre stuffed with movie tickets, a dinner gift card, a spa gift card.....WOW! (this was presented after already taking me out for my delicious birthday dinner!!) Also a Harry Connick Jr CD (the man knows my other loves!) and a small chocolate square that was left over from an airplane snack pack!! (I said "you can't wrap up a free chocolate square and give it to me", he said "that was expensive chocolate!". He's right. $6 snack packs on the airplane work out to about $1 each item!). And then finally, one tiny little wrapped item I could have lost or missed. A tiny little bucket of sand and a pair of tiny sunglasses. "For your memorial box" he said. He too had been missing out on adding to our pretty glass box, and was eager to contribute to our proclamation that God is still working in our lives. I was pleasantly surprised (although I don't know why I'm surprised at Tim's great gifting after 5 years) to not only have a new addition to the box, but especially that Tim saw this experience as worthy of a story.

Ok so here's the story. Essentially, Tim is an Eeyore at heart. He keeps low expectations, so that really any little positive thing will make an event seem "not that bad". It can be a sticky spot in our relationship sometimes, but we usually balance each other out okay. Last weekend, we traveled to Big Bear City, CA to make our annual visit to see my parents. We don't intend that it will be that long in between visits, but terrible snow on their end and life on our end, makes a visit to see them difficult and daunting. Lucy won't sleep, it's too expensive, we're too tired...etc etc. But realizing it had been over a year since my mom saw Lucy in person, we booked the tickets! We were celebrating Lucy's birthday (May 12) and mine (may 25)...something my mom had looked forward to immensely. She picked out special gifts,
and even created a masterpiece triple layer mimosa birthday cake.
This woman doesn't bake, so it was a surprise and a treat that not only would she do this, but that it turned out so AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS!! Lucy got several buckets and shovels and sand molds, intended for the beach, as some of her gifts from "gamma" and "gampa".
There was a chunk of time where we were at their house, Michael and Tim and I doing yardwork, while Mom and Lucy dug in the dirt. For 2 hours Lucy delighted in being covered from head to toe in Earth, Mom delighted in her private conversations with her real life grand-daughter (very different than skype she kept saying!!), Michael found and brought Lucy some earthworms and she didn't get creeped out(!!-he seemed proud of that!) and Tim and I enjoyed being able to physically help out and enjoy some sunshine and dirt ourselves. That was probably the peak memory of the trip, but there were lots more. Tim's biggest worry at the start of the trip, was the fact we were ALL got up at 4:00 am for our flight! Oh no: we are all sleep deprived, and every night we'll be up every hour (like our Hawaii trip)and we'll all be cranky and miserable. What? No sir: Lucy slept like a ROCK all 3 nights, in her borrowed pack and play! Go figure! (Seriously, I woke several times each night and had to physically touch her to make sure she was breathing!!) Everyone and everything was pleasant and peaceful. Meeting with an agent to try and put their house on the market went better than expected (in discussing a listing price). The parents had done so much nice work to make that run-down little cabin into an appealing place to visit. And Lucy wore her "rock star sunglasses" (another gift from gamma)the rest of the trip!!





And so, in summary, it was so nice to be pleasantly surprised, impressed even! The night we got home, I was cuddling Lucy before bed, re-capping our busy and long weekend, as she listed off the fun things she did...."dirt...gamma's house...mama dada lucy on the airplane..." and I got a bit teary. Thankful that she has some sweet memories of the grandparents, hoping there are many more; thankful that my parents love and treasure me and my little family; thankful that Tim was the one who pointed out how great of a trip it was! Yeah, I guess you could say it was worthy of a place in our Memorial Box.

I am reminding myself of how the glass box is labeled. I look forward to another year of being reminded of the truth of these words!!