It's the little things that count.

It was summer.

We were on vacation.

Actually...we'd just started our trip and we're in the middle of Missouri.

Everyone was piled up in the van (minus Mr Phineas, as he was not on the scene yet) and like Lewis & Clark we were heading out into the big world on a 5 week adventure crossing MO to the Oregon Coast and back. Along the way we'd swing into Idaho, visit the family, pick up Grandma Jones and then cruise a bunch of back roads over the mountains and through the woods to the Coast.

The van was clocking along, kids were playing and we were talking about what-not, when all of sudden Scott hits the brakes, and swerves to the side of the interstate.

I' m thinking .... accident? blown tire? overheating? diarrhea?

He's thinking ....turtle.

Scott had seen a turtle getting ready to make its final debut in a suicide crawl across the interstate and for whatever reason he turned into Mr Turtle, Turtle Superhero (name that movie) out to save the Terrapin.

He and Gabriel rushed out of the van and were overjoyed to find their turtle was of the snapping variety. They shoved sticks towards it's mouth provoking it to snap (over and over again) AND tried extremely hard to convince me to let the little guy join us as a fellow sojourner. When it was quite clear that Mama ain't no fool, they finally put it back in the ravine it came out of.

The ravine ran along side a field
The field held cattle
Cattle poop
Poop has to go somewhere ...and now you can image what the ravine smelled like.

I'm sure the turtle had come OUT of the ravine in a desperate attempt to escape; tired of stinking it up to high heaven and back. I am guessing that somewhere in that turtles' little pea brain it was really DE-LIGHTED when Scott and Gabriel picked him up. He was laughing as he rubbed some of his funky belly stank on them as payback for jabbing at his mouth with a stick.

Now ole' Scott and Gabriel may have deserved that smell, but us poor girls waiting patiently in the van...well - we were innocent bystanders. It took a trip to Walmart, a nail brush, hydrogen peroxide, strong antibacterial soap and looooong days for the odor to fade, but it was an experience I'm sure will remain with Gabriel.

Maybe the details won't stick in the memory banks, but the impression of a dad who thought saving a turtle was important will stay catalogued in his head and heart somewhere.

Life is full of a multitude of little things making up the big event. It is the nuances, the feelings evoked, the laughter and the tears that mark us. It's the smell of Grandma's night cream, the taste of strawberries in the summer, the sound of your best friends voice saying it's going to be alright that move us. It really is the little things that matter.

One day, down the road, Gabriel will be out on his own and a smell will trigger a memory. A connection will fire in his heart and suddenly he'll be thinking of his father and a turtle and he'll feel love.

This is good.