About the girls and the setting sun.

I just returned from a luscious weekend getaway with two girlfriends and I found this delightful email Ben sent me about his Saturday with the girls. Can I just say that I am married to the dreamiest, smartest, good-hearted man on the planet? Yes, I can.

"When I came home last night and the house was in it's normal state of grimy disarray, I said to myself that soon my house will be clean every day and I will miss my little girls. So I wanted to record, for posterity, since I will forget all too soon unless I leave some kind of record, that the girls and I had a wonderful day today. They've been very sweet to me and each other. We lounged around in the morning, watching Bleu's Clues, making crepes and messing up the house but we finally got it together enough to go to the botanical gardens to look for fairies. All day the sky had huge billowy clouds which is unusual for San Diego and it rained a bit today. During one brief shower we found ourselves in a mini playhouse with lots of interesting books so we just waited it out and then explored the rest of the gardens. On our way home we had to stop at the beach (Cardiff..I'd never been there before) because the sky was so unusal. Lily was scared of the water and wanted me to hold her but Chloe walked over a natural bridge among some rocky outcropings on the beach. Lily said, "Chloe is brave!" After that, while driving home, I had to pull over because at sunset the most amazing scene developed. The skies had become overcast which caused the sea take on an intense dark grey like a vast, cold slab of slate, but the sun had fallen below the line of the coulds and it shone, unabstructed, with brilliant, hot yellow light between the dark sea and clouds. As the waves curled, the sun shone more directly through them from behind causing them to shine with a deep but sparkeling green, while the spray from the stiff wind coming off the tops of the waves was turned golden in the sunshine. It was a sublime scene of yellow and grey: dark, cold, and bright and hot and so vast: eerie and wonderous. Shortly after this vision had passed and a steady rain had set in, I found that the girls had unbuckled their seat belts and were pretenting to be Rachel and dressing each other with their buppies in their wedding dresses. They both looked so beautiful and I couldn't help but think of that future date that I anticipate with hope and fear when they will be grown and will get married and will leave me. The thought now brings me to tears."

Ben