Trying Something New

A few weekends ago, my husband was out of town with our oldest daughter and I had the younger two at home. We had no plans for the weekend, which was a nice change. No practices to go to. No place to be. Nothing to plan for or prepare for. Just a weekend with two of my girls.

We were in between wanting to do something fun and chill at home. For the record, I wanted to stay home and my girls wanted to do something fun. Not knowing what we wanted to do, I asked the girls to think of something we haven’t done before in our home town. They started dreaming big and sharing ideas. Their ideas were a bit larger than my pocket book and were going to take us farther than I was going to travel in a night. I love their hearts to explore and travel, which they get that from me, but tonight, I was a tired momma.

It’s been a while since my girls were all younger and we were in the business of exploring all of the time before schedules became filled with different things they’ve become passionate about as they’ve gotten older, so I decided to check out the lists. You know, the “top 100 things to do before you leave the city” kind of list. It made me smile looking at the various lists made by locals as well as visitors, because we’ve experienced almost every single stop around our city. We’ve played at the parks. Visited the museums. Created scavenger hunts and saw the the views. We’ve explored and hiked. And I’m so thankful for their childhood.

Their childhood has been so beautiful to be part of, the most beautiful blessings of my life are my girls and it’s funny how a silly list can take me through memory lane within a split second.

But back to reality. I have a teen and a pre-teen wanting to do something fun, so we decided to eat a cuisine that we’d never tried before in our town. We began searching for local restaurants of various cuisines and found that there’s an entire world of restaurant spots around town we haven’t even begun to dive into. After going back and forth about where to land, we decided on a “French” themed night on a budget.

We visited a quaint, quiet neighborhood lined with shops and found Aixois, a beautiful French bistro nestled beautifully into a lovely neighborhood in town. Folks were walking their dogs. The breeze was just right and as soon as we walked inside, we noticed people laughing, connecting and chatting around table after table.

We were warmly welcomed and sat near the back. As we walked to our table, we were eyeing all of the food and wine and it took me back to the time I was blessed to visit Europe with my family. When we sat around the table for dinner, we sat for hours. We talked and talked, and ate and ate. The girls couldn’t stop laughing and it was the loud kind of laughing, too, y’all. Aixois took me back to that place. It was a slow paced, no phone on the table, and we’re here to have a good time kind of spot. We looked at the menu and decided to order one item and split it-something they were known for and something we hadn’t tried before.

So, we did.

My girls and I tried lavender lemonade, which we’d never tried before. We shared a lavender lemonade between the three of us, and between each sip was conversation, laughing and being present in the moment. We split a beautiful, homemade meal, and made forever memories for hours until the sun went down. It hit me on this night that my little girls aren’t so little anymore. The conversations we have as they get older keep getting better and better.

Thank you Lord for this gift of motherhood.

We weren’t quite ready for the night to end, so we looked up French desserts, and lo and behold, not too far from us was a French custard spot. The night was still beautiful, the schedule was still empty, and we had nothing but time and a French theme to lean into.

We didn’t spend much money. We didn’t travel far. We didn’t have a full-set agenda for the night except for the challenge of trying something new. We sipped on a lavender lemonade and shared a meal that was new to us and topped the night off with some custard, eating outside under the stars in a quiet neighborhood surrounded by beautiful homes and life moving about quietly around us.

This was a night I just wanted to pause in time.

Everything about it was beautifully unplanned and lovely and it all came down to making time to try something new.