So my children all decided to take Karate classes and today was the first day of their lessons. It was a glorious experience as a parent to sit and watch my kids laughing and trying to hit each other while someone other than me tries to make sure it doesn’t end in tears. There was all kinds of fun, like the moment when my daughter (who is 5’8″ tall) was paired up to spar with a little girl that was almost 3′ (if I’m being generous) and the little girl looks up at her and just says, “I was hoping I’d get put with a different kid.” And my daughter just responds with, “me too.” Or the moment when my youngest son decides he’s going to try swinging the nunchucks and smacks himself in the face and looks at them like it was their fault (they were padded toys instead of murder sticks with chain). All in all it was a delightful hour and right as the instructor dismissed them, there was a huge peal of thunder outside. All the parents looked at each other with that ‘of-course-it-starts-raining’ look and we all head to the door… But it wasn’t just rain. No, it’s a few days away from April, and the weather was perfect for shorts and T-shirts…in fact we were planning to get ice cream or something after class. But outside, it was hailing.

For anyone that doesn’t know, hail is snow’s older cousin. The one that likes to break windshields and torture small animals. Snow makes pretty blankets over the landscape and is like mother nature’s lego set. You can make stuff out of snow. Hail is just property damage and pain. People laugh as they run around trying to catch snow on their tongue. People scream as they run around trying not to get a busted lip from being punched in the mouth by hail. You get the idea.

Fortunately, the hail only lasted for about 5 minutes or so, then we could run out in the much less hazardous rain and try to ford the rapids in the parking lot to get to the car. The weather here is pretty strange, we’ve had T-shirt weather on Christmas and we’ve had snow after Mother’s Day before. But even on the wettest days, I have to say, there’s just something so energizing about listening to rain pitter and pat outside my window while thunder rolls in the distant mountains. I could listen to it for hours with a smile and one of the side benefits is that the plants absolutely love it! We have so many flowers after a good rainstorm. Does anyone have any good thunderstorm memories? Do you recall falling asleep as a child while listening to the rain? Did you go somewhere far away and drive through a delightful rainstorm? That’s another fun sound, cars driving lazily by on a wet road. We have lots of tree frogs in the back yard because we have lots of trees back there. After a good rain it’s a symphony of frog song. Well, I think it’s time to get a nice warm cup of hot chocolate and go listen to the world out on the porch. I hope everyone else out there can find a moment to go spend with their family just enjoying being together for a bit. Have a blessed day everyone!