This past weekend, I took a walk in Glendora and passed by Finkbiner Park. This park is filled with great memories of my children playing together. It reminded me of how much I loved watching my kids play when they were younger. I remember them playing tag at local parks or gobbling down their food and rushing to play on the slides, tubes and ball pit at McDonalds.

Walking past Finkbiner Park reminded me again of how blessed I am to have four kids who loved being and playing with each other all their lives.

And it’s something I miss now that they’re adults facing adult responsibilities, schedules and stress. I miss the anticipation in their body language as our car would approach a park, the youthful exuberance as they tumbled out of the car in their rush to the play equipment, the delight in their eyes as they gave themselves completely to whatever game they played.

This is probably one of the reason why I loved Pokemon GO when it was first released. Over the summer, I saw the old spark in their eyes when they would go to Claremont together. They would walk and scooter around the downtown area and explore the Claremont colleges together as they hunted these virtual critters. And they were playing together again.

I enjoyed joining them on these excursions. Debbie and I would walk with them, watch them scooter ahead to scout for Pokemon and come zipping back with excitement.

And for a little window of time this summer, I got to watch my kids play together again.

Over the next few months, our family faces a crushing schedule, one that will pull all six of us in different directions. It’s my goal to create some space where we can just be together and maybe just play.

(Here’s a video I created in 2004 of my kids playing.)