by Natalie Ogbourne | Dec 31, 2013 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
Two years ago my parents took all five grandchildren to Florida to the beach and Sea World and Disney World. Disney World. My mom looked kind of chagrinned when she brought it up, as though she was worried we might think they had taken leave of their senses. She had...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Dec 17, 2013 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
Parked on a chair in the hospital lobby, I was beyond the reach of the wind’s icy fingers. I’d come for a routine test and stayed to make my grocery list in an attempt to delay meeting the arctic air that had blown in that morning. A family went about...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Nov 24, 2013 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
Because I inherited my zeal for vacation planning from my dad, it wasn’t long after he invited me to go to the writing class that we began to plot the hikes we would take along the way. He charted our route, one that would take us into Yellowstone through the Tetons...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Nov 13, 2013 | Pause, Ponder the Path, Press On
“Come look at the sky–before it’s gone.” It was my dad. He was hard at work outdoors last weekend, building a wall with my husband and son. As usual, he had his eye on the sky and when he saw that the evening’s sunset was worth sharing, he did. My youngest walked...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Oct 9, 2013 | Navigating Tough Terrain
A thud near my head stirred me from sleep. The stirring wasn’t difficult. I was on the ground. We were camping, tucked away in a tent that hadn’t been warmed by the sun since we last slept in it in the back yard seven summers before. We weren’t in the back yard that...
by Natalie Ogbourne | Sep 19, 2013 | Navigating Tough Terrain
My parents are not lake people. They aren’t river people. When my brother and I occasionally talked about swimming in a nearby lake, they talked about field runoff. So when my mom told me we would be wading a river as we–my parents, the five grandchildren, and I–made...