opposites attract

One of my favorite things in life is the outdoors. A sunny day, a warm day, being surrounded by trees & flowers, birds chirping, green grass, a soft breeze, little wispy clouds dotting the bright blue sky - these are a few of my favorite things.

I was raised to be in the outdoors. We were not an adventurous family in that we weren't snowskiing or bungi jumping, but we did spend a lot of time in nature. Whether it was hiking, walking, bike riding, or camping, we all learned to be in tune with nature and enjoy the outdoors.

My husband? Not so much.

Hubby is a city boy, born and raised. He's all about the indoors, which I guess you learn to be, growing up within the city limits of a major, metropolitan city. His idea of outdoors was taking out the trash, riding to the baseball diamond, or cutting the lawn. I have tried over the years to introduce him to the outdoors. He has endured several family camping trips, but I use the word "endured" very lightly. "Suffered through" is more like it. "You want me to sleep outdoors? In a tent? You want me to go to the bathroom where? You expect me to eat food off of what?" I think he almost passed out the first time he saw us using a real stick to roast our marshmallows. A real stick. From. A. Tree. Oh, and you can't forget his obvious glee when a camp worker had to come and shoot a skunk near our tent. In broad daylight. With a shotgun. 30 feet from our campsite. Highlight of his camping trip that year!

To Hubby, being out in nature ranks right up there with posing for a picture:

So my love of the outdoors and his not love of the outdoors brings us to where we were this past Sunday afternoon. Me reading a book on a blanket in the backyard, and hubby in front of the television. It was a gorgeous day. The sky was blue, the sun was beating down hot, and the breeze was cool enough to keep you comfortable. This is when I decided that the current state of our Sunday afternoon was NOT OK. So I marched right in and said to hubby "Hubby, get your shoes, we are going down into the Park. It is way too nice of a day to be a-wasting!"

Because he loves me and always wants me to be happy and because he's the best guy EVER, we headed off to the Metroparks. Of course as luck would have it, we no sooner left our street than the skies clouded over and the nice, cool breeze was not so nice anymore. This did not deter me, I was a woman on a mission. We will be outdoors and we will walk in the park dammit! We decided to hit the trails behind our local Nature Center.

This is the inviting path that greeted us at the park. How could anyone resist this?

We passed a pond/wetland and saw tiny baby ducks and heard bullfrogs croaking. It was so peaceful.

Forget-Me-Nots: my favorite flower from my childhood home.

We spotted a young buck in amongst the trees. He had the cutest fuzzy antlers growing up out of his head. I hid behind a tree and snuck up on him.

This is the beautiful path we followed as we looped around and headed back out of the park.

As we left the park we passed this stone:

How true this is! Even though we don't share the same love of the outdoors, we do share a greater love: the love for each other. He endures my outdoor "adventures" for that very reason. Because he loves me. And the end result of the afternoon was we were able to spend time together, alone, amidst the beauty and wonder of nature. So peaceful, so right. I truly did receive far more than I sought when I dragged my man to the park that afternoon.