Perfect Day!

We rode from Sand City to Lover's Point in Monterey on our bikes.  It was so fun and the weather was perfect!  The whole family went and everyone had a good time. We decided that it was about an 8-10 mile round trip.  At the end we ate sandwiches, cuties, fruit snacks, string cheese and granola bars. Man, I'm tempted to go again tomorrow. Anyone wanna join us?

The only bad part about the day was, when we got back to the 

truck NO ONE would walk down to the beach with me.  We were right there!  100 yards to the beautiful ocean. What a bunch of bums.  So I did what any beach lover would do.  

I walked down by myself.  I sat on a log and watched the waves and the sand pipers.  I met a little girl (who came and sat on the log next to me).  She asked who I was (Stefani) and I asked her who she was (Lily, like the flower).  She looked like she was about 2.  She told me about her graham cracker that she was eating and how part of it fell and she was going to leave it in the sand for the birds.  She then spotted the contrails of a jet going overhead.  From our perspective it looked like the jet was going straight up.  Here's how the conversation went,

Lily: Hey! Look!  A rocket going straight up to the moon.

Stefani: Wow!  That is really great!  Do you think they'll see the stars?

Lily: It's not night time.

Stefani: Do you think rockets can still go to the stars during the day?

Lily: ya, I guess.

This is a silly conversation, but I was reminded how fun and simple it is to be a kid.  My first impulse was to correct her and tell her it was just an airplane.  Then I realized how great it is that the mind of a child would believe such things so easily.  That rockets just go up in random spots and at random times, in the middle of the day, and without fanfare.  She knew nothing of all the training and schooling that goes into building, launching, and flying a rocket, she knew nothing of Cape Canaveral on the other side of the country (she's probably never even hear of Florida), she knew nothing about perspective and how that plane was really just flying horizontally.  She was just excited to see a rocket going to the moon.  And come to think of it, so was I.  This is something I'm going to work on in 2009. Having the excitement, enthusiasm and faith of a little child.