The Simple Life

I've been meaning to post this for a long time, but I'm just now getting around to it. In fact, what reminded me about it is I'm listening to Dan talk on the phone to the lady at Cox and explain to her that the reason we are getting rid of our cable is just because we want to live more simply and spend more time together as a family instead of watching tv every night....she's clearly not understanding. But anyways it reminded me of something that happened on our honeymoon that I think about all of the time now. I haven't written anything about our honeymoon on here, so to catch everyone up, Dan and I went to Maui a couple weeks ago and had the most amazing vacation ever!! We stayed at this ridiculously expensive hotel that we would never be able to afford in a million years if Dan's uncle hadn't had connections and gotten us a huge discount. Then Dan's sweet parents ended up paying for our room anyways, which was such a blessing! So anyways we were in this 5 star hotel while they were shooting a movie with Jennifer Aniston, Adam Sandler, Nicole Kidman, and Dave Matthews...all of whom we saw almost every day. It was just such a surreal week. Even though, I was so sad to leave Maui, there was a part of me that was kind of relieved at the same time. It wasn't even that I was ready to sleep in my own bed (considering the one at the hotel was much more comfortable) or that I missed home cooked meals (since everything in Maui is organic and amazing)...really it was just that I noticed myself becoming more desensitized to simple living the longer we were there. The first day we got there it was like everywhere I turned I realized how out of place I was...and it didn't bother me that I would never fit into that glitzy world. Towards the end of the week, though, I started getting used to the high life, and it made me kind of sad to think about going back to a world of cheap shoes and grilled cheese (the only time in my life I've ever questioned life with grilled cheese). I stopped feeling like a visitor in that world and I started feeling like I was one of the regulars staying at the Grand Wailea. Things that originally were so unreal to me the first day were just the norm after a while.

Thankfully we serve a God who is an advocate for the simple life and was all too eager to remind me why it was never a good idea to sacrifice simple for "comfortable." The night before we left Maui Dan and I took one last walk on the beach. Every other night we had done that we were pretty much out there by ourselves. We would just walk up and down the beach talking about life and what the Lord was doing in our hearts. On this night, though, we saw a couple of flashlights down the beach. As we got closer we heard a lot of laughing and little feet running around. When we got close enough, we noticed a dad with his two little kids, all three wearing headlamps, building this amazing sandcastle and cracking up while they did it. If I wouldn't have looked like a huge creeper I would have sat there for a long time and just watched them, because it was such a sweet picture. All week I had watched kids all over the resort throwing huge fits because they got the wrong color of boogie board or because they had to get out of the pool to eat lunch...I'm talking HUGE fits. And then here was this dad who just grabbed a few headlights and probably let his kids stay up way past their bedtime just so they could all spend time together! I just loved it! It made me so ready to get back to my simple life :)! I want my kids to grow up doing things like that! I don't think Dan and I will ever have the money to stay in a place like that ever again...and if we do, I hope we just stay at a Hampton down the road, because I never want to lose appreciation for simple moments like that.