We spent a large portion of our day roaming all over a friend's large yard after three days of heavy rain. Let's just say that the mud was very present and I am currently soaking most of the clothes worn today to try and see if they are salvageable. We had fun, it was great to be outside in the sun, and we adored the chance to visit with dear friends.
In true Rutherford fashion, leaving on-time was an impossibility. Truly - how does one leave when they are completely enjoying the company they are with? So, I managed to remotely start the oven for the dinner Dawson had whipped up before we left the house. (Okay. Fine. So it wasn't as high-tech as it sounds. I called Scott and asked him to put it in. He switched laundry for me, too. Are you happy you made me spill my secrets??) But nothing could get us home in time for baths before we sat down to dinner with a much beloved Nana and Papaw, just returned from 2 weeks in LA. We simply ate in our muddy attire: laughing, sharing, chatting, and grinning.
Afterwards, Papaw delighted us with an invitation to McDonald's for ice-cream cones. I felt the younger children should change before we left because, let's face it, they looked gross and the people at McDonald's have eyes. However the other adults present felt that they should be allowed to go out in public "as is" since they would, after all, be eating ice cream, which usually results in a similar mess as to that which they were already sporting. In the end, we compromised by having only Abigail change since she did look as if she had quite literally rolled in the muck with pigs all day. Which, if you want to call the Miles' kids pigs, would be true. But since I won't call them pigs, I'll leave that distinction up to the reader.
And while yes, many of us left McDonald's sporting obvious signs of ice cream cone drippings down our shirts, I'm still not convinced it wouldn't have been nicer to the world at large to have simply sullied two outfits today.
