Nature

When the weather is decent, we spend pretty much all of our time outside.  Walking the doggies, riding bikes, hiking and having picnic lunches in the state park are some of our favorite activities.  After about six feet of snow this winter, we're itching to see some green around here. 

The Princess has never been big on TV.  And what I mean by that is that she doesn't give two figs about it.  There have been a couple of things that have held her interest past the credits with their scrolling words, but not much. 

I've always been fascinated with nature, especially the stuff we don't have in the Midwest.  Oceans, mountains, bears, you name it.  One of my deepest fascinations has always been the sea, and if things had worked out differently when I was younger, I'd likely be a marine biologist now with a major soft spot for surfing.  

As it is, I feed these obsessions from the comfort of my little yellow house through movies, books and lots and lots of documentaries.  

Yesterday was one of those glorious pajama days.  Nothing pressing, no reason to go run in the rat race.  It had been a while since I last curled up with a documentary, so I fired up Netflix. 

My girl immediately snuggled herself into a tiny ball in my lap, and we watched two whole documentaries together: one about the rugged Big Sur coastline and another about surfing in Tahiti.  We laughed and talked, me telling her the animals' names and her making the first consonant sounds back to me.  My favorites? Kuh for cougar and Thhh for seal, sea lion and surfing. 

It was heaven.