money honey

Our local honey comes from a place called Honeyville. It is a bit of a roadside attraction and the kids are always wanting to go. We eat a lot of honey. Matt puts it in his coffee and I use it in my bread, (holy toledo...do you know how good it feels to write that?!) We can get it at the grocery store, but it was a beautiful day and we were all up for a drive in the country, so we headed out to Honeyville. The biggest attraction of the place is that the kids can watch the bees come and go from the hive via a clear plastic tube that exits out the wall. The hive sits in the middle of the store and has steps for the kids to stand on and stare at at it. It is encased in glass...clearly. The queen bee lives in the hive and is marked with a very small dot of red fingernail polish. The goal is to find the queen bee. This doesn't happen often. She's not easy to see. Almost impossible, in fact.

We walked in and there was an older couple standing before the hive. They had been there for a long time. The husband was hell bent on finding the queen and the wife wanted to get back to the R.V. The man looked at my three kids and made a wager.

"I've got five dollars for the person who finds that queen bee" he said.

I knew exactly where that five dollars was going to end up.

I know my children.

They all scampered up to the hive and started looking. It's 2-sided, so there were two angles to peruse from. There was some pushing and shoving involved. But after a few minutes, two of my children quit. They moved over to the honey stick and candy aisle.

About five more minutes passed and my one very persistent child was still there. Craning and looking, not about to walk away until the queen bee was located. The R.V.er's had purchased their goods and were lingering near the door. They were ready to go.

The wife was a mother, too.

"That child is going to find that bee and you made a promise." she said to her husband.

We made small talk. I was stalling for my sweet baby. I found out that they were from Tucson, but were going up to northern Colorado to visit their grandchildren. They were going to spend the summer being camp hosts at Horse Tooth Reservoir. (Something I want to do one day and a place I was hoping to visit this summer, ironically) They were very nice people and....

"I FOUND IT" the shout rang out!

Everyone in the store rushed over to see. And there she was. A tiny speck of red marking her in the maze of activity.

The man pulled out a beautiful silver and turquoise money clip with a huge wad of money in it and peeled off a five.

"What's your name, son?" he asked

"Lewis" he said, in a barely audible voice and looking at the ground.

You can be soft spoken when you're that damn diligent.

I love my Lewis.