"Labor" Day Weekend

Ever find it amusing, ironic, utterly absurd that "Labor" day is a holiday?  Not only is it a holiday, but it's a day most people do nothing?  I've wondered about that for years.

Lately I've been looking at things differently, from lots of different angles.  This year we were no exception.  I had all kinds of things I wanted to get done this weekend, but when it came down to it, we did nothing except play.  So after turning it around in my head lots of different ways, I've decided labor day is a time to rest from labor in order to appreciate more the fact that God has given us the privilege to labor, to have labor, and to find fulfillment in labor.  So, we rested, played, and enjoyed being a family this "labor day" weekend.

Here are the pictures, cause they say so much more than words ever could.

I'll start with earlier in the week, though...

We made it to our park this week.  We went to Hillcrest Park in Mt. Vernon since we were down there shopping all day Tuesday.  This, however, is the only photo from the park.  I spent time playing with the boys instead.

Friday, the sun slowly started coming back out again, so we went to the city park in the afternooon.
Micah was quite enthralled with watching kids "appear" out of the slide and Brandon thought it
was pretty funny to be the one to surprise him.

Friday evening we went to the "boat" park for supper with some friends with whom we have not spent time with in a very long time.  It was good, fun, and relaxing.  She also has a Nikon camera and let me play around with her 300 lens/borrow it for the weekend.  It was fun taking pictures from a different perspective.

Sunday afternoon we decided to walk to Bender park for a while.  Brandon has not been able to do the monkey bars on his own, and always wants me to carry him across, which I've been doing so he gets the muscle memory figured out.  Well, Bryan and I were watching Micah and I turned around to see what Brandon was doing and he had swung across three bars all on his own.  Then dropped cause he realized what he had just done...

So I said, "WOW, Brandon!!  You just did all by yourself!!  Can you show me how you did that?"
So he did it again, and again, and again, but only to the first three bars.

I love the look of joy and excitement on his face as he realizes he's doing it by himself.

He took a break for a while and played with us again and then he went off to do it again.  Only this time, he made it just about the whole way across.

Looking at things from new perspectives...

 Monday morning I left at 7:30am to go shopping by myself...such a treat.  When I left it was pretty foggy at our house so I grabbed my camera and stopped along the Hannegan to take some pictures. 

In the afternoon we headed over to Bumpa and Grandma's house with high expectations to do very little.  The most ambitious thing we did was to drive four-wheeler out to the river to go fishing.  It was a perfect afternoon.

All three of these boys got fishing poles for their birthday.  Bumpa is definitely the seasoned fisherman of the group and did lots of teaching to Bryan and Brandon.  Brandon has been telling everyone all week that he got a fishing pole for his birthday and he was going to go fishing with Bumpa and Daddy and they were going to be BOYS together!

His pole had to be "set-up" so Bumpa taught Daddy how to string it and tie knots.  Brandon tried to wait very patiently.

Just about can't stand the wait any longer...it's so hard when you're so excited...

Meanwhile, Micah was playing in the rocks and mud and thoroughly content.  I love this next series of pictures...

"Oh, maybe putting that chunk of mud in my mouth wasn't such a grand idea."

"Blllaaack.  Mommy, stop laughing at me."

Still waiting and trying to learn and asking all kinds of questions.

This picture cracks me up.  It reminds me of the Bernstein Bears book "Bike Lessons".  "Is it MY turn yet?"

 And another favorite series.  So precious a memory having Bumpa teach him how to fish.

"I can do it myself."

From then on, someone would cast it out for him and he would reel it back in but at the end of the day
the fish just weren't biting.  It was the first thing he said to me this morning, "Yesterday we went fishing
at Bumpa and Grandma's house but the fish weren't biting so we have to go another day."

Father and son fishing.

A different generation of father and son fishing.

Grandma taught Micah how to throw rocks in the water and he was all about that!

While all that was going on, I was playing around with my camera and the borrowed 300 lens.

See?  I caught the moon...

And that concludes our labor day weekend. 
Praying you had a weekend of relaxing from your labor so you too will be refreshed for what God has called you to this day and week.
Blessings