Beautiful Day

Today was a beautiful day - in every sense of the word. First of all, the weather. Oh my goodness, the weather was beautiful today. I mean West Michigan beautiful, Northwest Arkansas beautiful, Central Kentucky beautiful. The blue sky towered overhead, strewing strips of sparkling gold sunlight, interspersed with long autumn shadows, all across the streets of this otherwise flat, matte city. It was warm enough for shorts but cool enough for goosebumps in the shade. Black and turquoise butterflies flitted, hand-pulled noodles roiled happily in their steaming pots, and even my cold Coca-Cola tasted better than it usually does. My-oh-my what a beautiful day.

Our selfie!

To make matters even more beautiful, I got to spend this day entirely in the company of my beautiful daughter. Daddy and the boys are camping tonight with friends, and so Jubilee and I had the whole day and evening to ourselves to do exactly as we pleased. It was glorious.

We started out with lunch, dining in the open-air, ordering noodles for her and chicken leg with pickled potatoes for me.

She and I are the only members of our family who love Chinese cuisine, and so whenever we go out together, we eat at precious places like this.

After lunch we rode our scooter through town to the Wal-Mart down by my old school, where I bought her a toy of her choosing - a blue teddy to which she gave the name Sky (appropriate name for a day like this).

After that we scooted some more, and soaked up some more sunshine, taking our sweet time. We arrived home contentedly sometime after 5, to heat up bowls of chili (my parents' famous recipe) and then watch Sweet Pea Beauty - a Veggie Tales' princess movie, in which inner beauty is stressed over physical appearance. During the movie we devoured a big bowl of popcorn between us, and I have to say our hearts felt more connected than ever. It was a day of snuggling and talking, eating and cruising, and we thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

What a beautiful day.