Our Last Summer Saturday

We celebrated the last Summer Saturday with a busy family day together! 

After our pancake breakfast we knocked out some chores. Ava helping daddy with her laundry:

After we went and looked at some flooring for the living room we then headed down town for some fun! We picked up some Hoagies and took them up to Ryan's office where we ate in style and enjoyed the panoramic city views.

You can see as far as the top of the capital:

Then we took Ava down to the fountain in brick town to splash around:

We wrapped up our downtown fun with a trip The Candy Co. for some Gelatto:

The rest of the day was the just right Saturday combination of relaxing and getting some things accomplished a great last summer Saturday!

Some back story on the day: I went to this great training at work on Friday on a new therapy model we will be using. I loved the part of the model about helping clients be truly present in each moment. Most of the time we are consumed with the past or stuck in what will happen next thinking. It's actually really hard to sit for any amount of time in the current moment. (Try it for a few minutes and just observe around you, you can't go long till you start planning something or thinking about something that already happened.) We let so many hurts in our past or worries about the future ruin what is now. This theory also teaches us that a therapist cannot truly impart the skills of this model without living them themselves. So I was very "mindful" (one of key components of this model) of staying present in each moment today. I was so much more aware today of times I was tempted to not stay present in the moment, for example instead of giving myself fully to the joyful experience of watching Ava play in the fountain, I started to think about the hot walk to the Gelatto shop were going to next and how close nap time was coming and wondering would she get cranky. I think this is such a spiritual struggle we all have. But today I was so aware of what I was doing and shut that thinking down to return myself to being fully present with that moment. It really made a great day even sweeter, fuller and richer.