"Oh, Glory!"

I had a wonderful treat today. I got to go to a place I haven't gone in almost two years. One of my favorite places in the world...

I told the boys we were having a little surprise after nap. Brannon was very busy trying to figure out where we were going. Somewhere in town (nope, not the theatre...not the toy store...) Hmmmm, it's in town, inside a building (not someones house...not the pet store) When we were getting ready to leave and I mentioned what we would be picking up at the grocery store for dinner he said "well, it's not a restaurant either, since you're talking about food." He was really thinking it through :)

We drove down our windy road with a three quarter moon smiling down at us out of an improbably blue January sky. The little valleys were all ringed with clouds over the hills, but the rest was blue. I turned on loud, rowdy music hoping it would help contain my excitement. It helped...a little.

By the time we exited the freeway my gut was twisted around a whole lot of butterflies. I was so excited. I wondered if the boys would even remember coming here. We turned into the parking lot. Joshua wanted to know if we were going into that building. Yes. That big one? Yes, the one right in front of us.

The Library.

The beautiful public library. Closed due to lack of funding.

It was unbelievable. So sad.

My book collection has grown exponentially since that fateful day.

Now it's open again. Hopefully for good. We were finally all well enough (so I thought) to enjoy this lovely treat. Well, Brannon was feeling a little low again the last couple of days. He thought he would be fine to go to town this afternoon (I asked him, since he had started coughing again today). But, by the time we got inside the library he was exhausted and couldn't wait to get home and sit down. I felt bad for him. :-( So we kept it pretty short. Still they both wanted to pick out several books and videos before we left. Brannon had some memory of the library. He remembered where the videos were and that there were books on tape. And when we went back to the adult section and mama was looking for craft and gardening books he suddenly asked if there were books there on making things out of wood. His last obsession with the library was checking out books on making wooden toys and poring over them in the hopes that Papa or Grandfather would make him the things he wanted. I thought it was very interesting how this memory popped up for him.

Joshua, predictably, wanted to grab the first books he could lay hands on and get the heck out of there. Yep, that's my Josh all right. I asked what he wanted books about and we ended up with a couple about fire fighters, one about amazing rescues, tractors... And a story book I grabbed for him which he looked at on the way home and pronounced his enthusiastic approval. Jethro and Joel Were a Troll by Bill Peet. :)

We had fun, but I'm guessing mama will want to make it to the library on her own as often as possible. I'll take a list of requests with me. :-)