Matthew. I love his name. I love every chance I get to say it. My Matthew. Eight years have flown by already.
We Preslars love our annual Matthew holiday. Our traditions, simple as they are, are becoming more and more cemented in place. Dinner together - purchased from someplace fun so mommy doesn't have to cook. We had a lot of rain the week of the 5th and weren't sure when it would be hitting on Tuesday night so we decided to enjoy our meal of orange chicken and chow mien noodles on our back porch, which had just been freshly opened up for the season. Pots were planted and things had just been arranged for back yard gathering.
After dinner we packed up our supplies for having a cake picnic and headed to the grocery store for our balloons. Dark green for Troy, light green for Cap, red for Skippidy, pink for Bitty and of course purple for me. We drove up to our favorite park above the capital building which has such a beautiful view of our valley. It was cool and the sky was filled with a stunning bounty of puffy flowing billowy clouds. I love clouds. The kids played for a few minutes and we took some pictures. We brought out the balloons and the cake and set up a little picnic spot for ourselves. The wind was a active enough to make us worry but we secured the balloons with a heavy clip and ran off to take more pictures.
In a little while Troy and I stood by the fence of the tennis court and gazed at our gorgeous valley, feeling grateful for the journey life has laid out for us, enjoying our children as they romped around together. The kids all started running our way when suddenly we heard a cry of alarm from Bitty, who shouted out Skippidy's name in horror. We turned around to see a stricken Skippidy, standing frozen over the balloon clip, her hand stretched out just under the rapidly ascending balloon ribbons. Apparently she had thought it was time to write our notes and send our balloon messages to Matthew and was trying her very best to be helpful but instead accidentally and quite prematurely released all five balloons. Of course both she and Bitty instantly burst into tears, and we gathered at the park's edge to cry and watch the balloons float away. It was very sweet and sad to have two heartbroken girls have a good hearty weep as we wrote our notes to Matthew anyhow. The kids wanted to have a miniature bonfire and burn the notes as an alternative method to sending our messages heavenward. We told them we'd think about it and instead I carefully saved each note to put in our Matthew box since all of our other notes escaped via balloon. I thought it would be fun to save just one year's notes so we could remember what kind of things the kids were saying to Matthew.
In a little while Troy and I stood by the fence of the tennis court and gazed at our gorgeous valley, feeling grateful for the journey life has laid out for us, enjoying our children as they romped around together. The kids all started running our way when suddenly we heard a cry of alarm from Bitty, who shouted out Skippidy's name in horror. We turned around to see a stricken Skippidy, standing frozen over the balloon clip, her hand stretched out just under the rapidly ascending balloon ribbons. Apparently she had thought it was time to write our notes and send our balloon messages to Matthew and was trying her very best to be helpful but instead accidentally and quite prematurely released all five balloons. Of course both she and Bitty instantly burst into tears, and we gathered at the park's edge to cry and watch the balloons float away. It was very sweet and sad to have two heartbroken girls have a good hearty weep as we wrote our notes to Matthew anyhow. The kids wanted to have a miniature bonfire and burn the notes as an alternative method to sending our messages heavenward. We told them we'd think about it and instead I carefully saved each note to put in our Matthew box since all of our other notes escaped via balloon. I thought it would be fun to save just one year's notes so we could remember what kind of things the kids were saying to Matthew.
As always the day was incredibly tender. It seems like time freezes for us every May 5th and we are suspended in memory and a gentle love for our little clan.
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