Sacred Saturdays

One of my greatest desires in 2009, as I watch my children grow and mature, is to make a priority of spending good quality family time together. Yes, we are together a lot, but often it is just living life, ie. doing house work, yard work, eating dinner, reading books, running errands. All of this is fine, and it is family time, but I'm more interested in designated, planned time together. Basically, I want to try to keep our Saturdays (or Sundays) sacred. We have been doing very well thus far in 2009. Earlier this month on a Saturday we took our annual pilgrimage (30 minutes away) to The Ponce De Leon Lighthouse, the second tallest lighthouse in the nation...175 feet high. It is Florida's tallest lighthouse...and we have quite a few! This time we took Dad with us! Can he make it all the way up?

First we started with a picnic lunch. You can see that I'm more willing to place myself on the other side of the camera....it is difficult, but it is another one of my 2009 goals.



Mike never has a difficult time with the camera. He we are still eating!

Don't worry too much about Kyle's face here....he was doing that on purpose....we haven't even gotten to the lighthouse steps and we've already taken about 10 pictures!

Look out boys don't fall! Yea, no we are just at the bottom! Anxiously awaiting the 213 step flight up the very narrow stairs.

Always well worth the non stop heart pounding trip up! I could do this every day...seriously!

This shot above is about midway up the steps.

Here we are, enjoying quality time together! I just love it!

In the Light Keeper's home there were a few fireplaces. Shane was impressed...He asked Brendan if "Santa could really fit down this fireplace?" Kyle was explaining that the fire place just gets bigger as he makes his way down. "No Really....I saw it on a movie!" Thanks Kyle!

We ended our trip to the light house with a small hike through some trails on the property. All in all we had a blast. Loving and laughing together...who could ask for more?