Early this morning was the peak viewing time for the Perseid meteor shower. The articles I read beforehand indicated the peak viewing time would be from 2-4am, and the "show" would be better than usual this year because it was a new moon, causing the sky to be dark. Tyler has always been interested in the stars, so I thought it would be nice to share this with him if possible.
I went outside a little after midnight to see if I could see anything from our backyard. After about 5 minutes, a brilliant white light streaked over my head, leaving an orange trail in the darkness. It was beautiful. I decided not to wait until 2 and woke Tyler up to watch with me.
Still wiping the sleep from his eyes, he held his little flashlight while I grabbed a comforter, a couple pillows, and a sleeping bag. We made our way into the dark backyard and set up camp: we spread the comforter out on the ground, rested our heads on the pillows so we could watch the sky, and snuggled under the sleeping bag. Hunter decided she wanted to watch the stars, too, so she plopped down between our heads and refused to go back inside. So Tyler, Hunter, and I laid on our blanket, listened to the crickets chirp, and watched the stars together. It was one of those spontaneous, special, fun moments I hope he will always remember.
We talked and giggled and waited. Then he saw one. And another. And another. None of them were as spectacular as the first one I saw without him, but he was pleased. We stayed out for a while and saw a handful of shooting stars. There were some clouds drifting by, but they didn't get in the way too much. It was a nice time.
After a lull, we decided to go back in and get some sleep for a couple hours. We decided we would get up around 3 and come back out to look again during the "peak" time. I woke up at 3:03. Before waking Tyler up, I decided to peak out the window first. Sadly, the sky was completely overcast and only thick clouds were visible in the sky. So much for the peak viewing time. I'm so thankful Tyler and I got to enjoy watching the stars together earlier.
(For the record, I thought Danielle would be afraid outside at night in the dark, so I didn't include her. She was really mad when she found out this morning, though!)
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One of my favorite memories is of laying on the dock at the dive lodge in Cayman and watching the meteor showers. This year the skies have been cloudy and it's rained the last three days. I'm envious you got to watch them. Tyler's a lucky guy.
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