Once when I was about 10 years old, I awoke very early on a Saturday morning in June. We had just moved into our new house in Rexburg, Idaho, where my father had recently been hired as a professor at Ricks College (now BYU—Idaho). No one else was awake. The sun was not even up, but the windows were open and cool fresh air drifted through the rooms, smelling like the fields around our house. I stole out to the living room, still in the disarray of moving. As I stood there, all quiet in our silent house, the sun came up and shone, brilliant and oblique, into the bare room where I stood. I felt like the day, and my life, were flooded with possibilities. It filled my heart with joy and anticipation.

Of course the day turned into just another Saturday, but ever since then I have loved the morning.

I woke Abby up at 5 am last Saturday and bundled her into the Jeep. It was her day for some time alone with Dad. We drove down along the river and tumbled out, with the dogs, to go exploring. We followed a dirt road for a ways and crossed the railroad tracks. (A train went by with 7 engines in a row and 115 cars—ask Abby!) We climbed steep rocks and skirted the edges of cliffs. We saw flowers and birds and the river curling silently among the cliffs below. And when we got hungry, we clambered back down to the Jeep and jounced home for some breakfast.

I think it’s important to spend one-on-one time with our kids. It’s kind of difficult with my schedule, but it’s pretty important. In between all the work this summer, we’ll do some playing too. And some of it will be early on the summer mornings, before the world is awake, when the sun and swallows are awake and nobody else is. Maybe my kids too will feel the strength of the morning, and fulfill the potential of their day and their lives as I have tried to do.