The Railsback Family: August 2016

Early August we did our annual summer hike date night. This year the trails were open to Royal Arch. I wanted to die many times along the trail.

I was a disgusting sweaty red faced mess at the top, but I made it. Clifton on the other hand looks like he just changed from his work to work out clothes.

This is the view that makes it all worth it.

The girls and I spent a day with my folks at Dave and Val's cabin doing some small projects. The girls were put on the chair cleaning committee.

Celebrating Asher's seventh birthday!

Naomi caught this small snake in our yard. The girls have decided this is the teenager in the snake family. Probably because he's too cool for his family and is always texting his snake friends.

Clifton and I skipped town for a long weekend and my folks generously watched the girls. Here they are playing together in the back yard.

...and inside the house...

...and reading together. I swear, they never spend this much time together without yelling when we are around. We're leaving more often. For the kids' sake. Obviously.

Harry Potter camp. I didn't sign the kids up fast enough so all the slots were gone. No big deal. I'll just have my own Harry Potter camp. We'll make potions and design wands and learn about owls. I bought these owl pellets for kids to dissect. Of course, now it's several days before school starts. No Harry Potter plans have been made. So I skip town, leave mom with a bunch of owl vomit balls and tell her to have fun.

If you need mouse skulls or femurs or vertebrae, we have a bunch.

Someone forgot to tell Annika to turn around, but it's pretty sweet of the other two.

Meanwhile Clifton and I were in Highlands, NC with my BFF Ginny. She moved into the house next door the summer before fifth grade and we were pretty inseparable after that. This is at Sunset Rocks.

We did a great hike. Being from Florida, she and Pete loved the cool mountain air, while Clifton noted the "oppressive" humidity.

This was maybe the most amazing waterfall I've ever seen. Just. So. Powerful.

Ginny and I were talking about how dumb you'd have to be to climb down and get that close to the base of the waterfall (just to the right of this photo). Until Pete started doing it. And then how could I not? Within a minute we were drenched with spray. And I slipped in the mud on the way down. But it was awe inspiring.

Another gorgeous waterfall.

Views from the top of Whiteside Mountain.

So this. We thought it would be fun to go out on a boat for a few hours and go water skiing. Because if I could barely do it when I was 16, how much harder could it be at 39? Clifton was brave enough to go first. Looking like a good start.

I love this picture so much. Because this is what Clifton and I looked like. Again and again. To be fair, Clifton tried 4 times and I tried something like 400. So I sucked more.

Ginny made it look easy.

And Pete slolamed because regular skiing was just too easy.

This friend. This woman. She has been with me through pretty much every life stage. There is trust and beauty in that kind of friendship. We are both working mothers of three in different time zones and don't have much time to keep up on the small stuff. Despite that, the way we see the world and our lives and our relationships and our faith has grown more together over the years than apart. So when we get together for something like this, conversation is rich. Silence is comfortable. Sharing is safe. Laughter is real. Love is assumed.

I mean, if we could make it through this lapse in judgment, we can make it through anything.

Out for a swanky dinner at Wild Thyme.

God knew it would be hard to come home from that restorative time away, back to work, back to first week of school, back to the chaos starting up again. So He gave us this sunset over the mountains as we landed at DIA to remind me that He's got it under control.