Saturday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, birds were chirping and I was able to walk around wearing a t-shirt for the entire day. On Sunday it started raining again.

But both days were wonderful thanks to a very good friend and her mother who took both of our boys (BOTH!) for an overnight adventure. That meant that Kei and I were given more than 30 hours to do the following:

• Visit the Portland Nursery without once saying “stay close please”, “don’t touch that” or “that plant is not a toy”.
• Plant some strawberries and some tomatoes in record time (or regular time for people without children).
• Go out for dinner and watch other people’s children get told off by the manager for playing with dirt in the ornamental garden – all while being thankful that they weren’t our children (because our children would totally be doing that).
• Stay out late for dinner and drinks without stressing about getting home in time to pay the babysitter. We were still home by 9:30pm. (sad, but true)
• Sit outside by the fire pit until late into the night talking – without the need for a baby monitor.
• Sleep in until 10:30am (!!!!)
• Watch a movie during the daytime. Couldn’t convince Kei to see Sex and the City so we agreed on Iron Man 2.
• Browse for shoes at the mall by myself – but without finding the ones I was looking for.
• See the excited expressions on my baby’s faces when we picked them up at about 5pm.
• Have the wonderful experience of time to ourselves, but the even more wonderful experience of being reunited with our babies.

So tomorrow is back to school (5 more days of it than I realized – I guess I was getting excited for the end of the year). I just hope the weather picks up and the sun shines so our strawberries and tomatoes are given a fighting chance. I know the rain is good for them but enough is enough.

And so for my Monday Mosaic, I share a little reminder of why we have rain. It gives me hope for more t-shirt days in our near future.