Green trees and hugs

The other night, we drove up to Madison for dinner and it was just too nice of an evening to go straight back home (though that same situation landed us in trouble not too long ago--remember the horror of the Asian market!).

With these long summer evenings, we thought we'd have time to go to the nearby zoo, so we headed over there. Unfortunately, the zoo personnel must not share our belief that long summer evenings are a good time to look at animals, so they were closed.

Instead, we headed into the nearby arboretum, which is one of those places that we've read about and always thought would be fun to explore but we'd never actually been in yet despite the fact that we once drove around a good part of it trying to find Monroe Street or somewhere and we've lived here for nearly 9 years now (phew!).

So we drove in and it was kind of magical. Cool green tunnel of trees, water on one side, lots of bikers and joggers, and many, many squirrels. You would certainly never have thought that you were in a place surrounded on all sides by a city of 250,000. We saw more bunnies than you could shake a stick at, lots of birds, and even two sandhill cranes.

We parked and walked around exploring for almost an hour. My favorite memory of the evening--Greg and the girls had wandered away a little bit to explore a willow arbor/hut type of structure. Julia decided that instead of exploring further with them, she was going to head back to me.

And with a wide grin, arms outflung, giggling, she raced back towards me. I squatted down and caught her in a great, big hug. What a treat. Especially since that became a game for the rest of the evening.

She'd walk away, turn around, yell, "Sit down on your legs," wait for me to squat and open my arms, and come running like a madwoman.

I'm saving this stuff up, you know. She already tells me sometimes that she doesn't like me and I'm not looking forward to the first time she says she hates me.

I'll read this blog entry someday when she's 9 or 13 or 16 (or maybe all three) and I'll remember that enormous, joyous hug.

I love you, Julia.