Spending time with people with shared passions leads to great ideas, new dreams, many memories, and so many laughs!
Appreciation:
Last night my phone screamed a loud siren out of the blue. My Northern Lights app gave me an alert that the Northern Lights had a 10% chance of being seen, so I hopped out of bed and went out to our deck and saw this:
Then I got a sweatshirt on and drove to Nelson Park and saw this :
And then as I drove past the airport I saw this…
Such a gift!!! Seeing the Northern Lights a second time in less than a year, I’m still glowing from the sense of awe about 16 hours later.
I’m a slow but sure learner sometimes. Over the past handful of vacations I always plan on organizing my photos and videos but it often doesn’t happen. This means that while there’s a pile of memory starters there is also a big pile of near duplicate photos to be deleted.
On our flight back today I focused on cleaning up my photos. They’re all sorted by day, in chronological order, and with the near duplicates and photo fails deleted. Took some songs today but will save a ton of time in the future.
Appreciation:
One of the biggest reasons for heading to Iceland was to see the Northern Lights. The odds of doing so are spotty at best, even in the best of conditions. The clouds fought us the majority of the nights and when it was clear the Aurora Borealis was too shy and stayed away.
Last night while sitting in the hot tub I pulled up the forecast as we looked up at the stars. According to the Aurora app we had an exactly 1% chance of seeing them. Steve laughed and quoted the line from Dumb & Dumber, “so you’re saying there’s a chance!”
After some games we all started to close out our nights. On a whim I decided to walk outside and check one more time. As I turned to the north I was rewarded with a ribbon of light rippling across the sky. I ran inside, grabbed Gavin & Steve, and headed out to enjoy the show.
The really big lights didn’t last very long and some clouds moved in, but we’d accomplished our goal and beaten the 1 in 100 odds.
My dreams were very intense afterwards. Much of it was a reminder to me of the dangers of taking on too much. It reminded me of the importance of saying no more often, of slowing down, and remembering to stay focused on what’s really important to me. It was so intense I woke up in a sweat at 4:41 am.
When I got up I looked out my window and was so shocked at what I saw I didn’t trust myself to wake everyone right away. I quietly snuck out of the house and saw tendrils of light stretching through the night!
I woke everyone up and we spent well over an hour in astonishment and joy watching the lights. We took photos, we just looked up in awe, and enjoyed every single minute until it started to dwindle. I’m still awestruck at what we witnessed.
I am so grateful for our luck and our timing.
Presence:
Last night and again early this morning as we watched the Northern Lights there was a very specific moment I’ll remember forever. Amongst the spectacular light show Gavin put an arm around me and pulled me in close. “We did it! Thanks for bringing me to Iceland!” You betcha buddy, happy to have created these memories with you.
Thankful for Forty 