A pep talk

Boy, there's all kinds of videos popping up on here lately, isn't there?

This one's so fantastic, it's like a great, big hug on a Saturday morning :)

Into the great wide open

Our weekend was full of some of my favorite weekend things: people we love, a good bit of laziness mixed with a healthy dose of moving about, and some seriously awesome planning for seriously awesome summertime adventures.

First, we spent Friday evening with Caleb and Jen, discussing the very important topic of camping in the Hoh Rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula and also on the coast during Long Beach's sandcastle building contest, which made me want to run right home and dig out our tent and sleeping bags.

Then, Derek and Sara stayed the rest of the weekend with us and we applied for a permit to hike and camp in the Enchantments, which is an impossibly beautiful section of the Cascade Mountains. Permission to roam around up there is based on a lottery system, so if we're lucky duck enough, this is what we'll be in the middle of at the end of July:

(Photos captured by Derek - who else? - on their trip in 2009.)

And the four of us rounded everything out by registering for the Survivor Mud Run in June:

I try not to let thoughts of future fun rob me of the fun going on right now, but man, it's hard not to be crazy excited for what we have in the works a few months down the road :)

Love on the 14th ♥

Just a quick glimpse into what things looked like around here yesterday, and two sweet videos that remind us to cheer on all different kinds of love on Valentine's Day...

A great big sigh of grateful

Precisely 21 days ago I very foolishly challenged a box in the back seat of my car to a wrestling match. The box won and my poor, poor, very poor back lost. Please, if you possibly can, avoid back sprains at all costs.

My convalescence has included an inordinate amount of time both in bed and in the bath, many moons spent with a heating pad and an ice pack, a handful of muscle relaxers and just last week, the beginning of physical therapy. It has included very little productive work of any kind and certainly not a stitch of anything involving exercise.

{It has also, for the 7 millionth time, caused me to tumble head over heels in you-know-what with my Jan Michael, who has washed dishes, folded laundry, swept floors and on and on, in order that I might rest and heal. There's a lovely silver lining in everything, isn't there?}

Anyway, today - for the first time in precisely 21 days - we were able to take a walk. Going outside for the sake of going outside after what has seemed like a century was so refreshing, I almost cried. I'm tempted to say I'll never take a healthy, cooperative body for granted again, but human nature being what it is (or mine, at least), that kind of declaration seems a little bit hasty. It's something to work toward, though :)

And maybe tomorrow we'll be able to go out again and make a pit-stop at the park for some time on the swings!