A few days ago, Alexis and I headed to our favorite playground for an hour or so of fun. After about fifty-teen zillion pushes on the swing, my arms grew weary so I asked Alexis if she wanted to go for a hike. It took some convincing, but I finally managed to get her to follow me to the wooded area nearby.

We headed deeper into the woods, and Alexis began to enjoy the exploration more and more. As she carefully navigated some stones so her glittery shoes wouldn't get wet as she crossed a creek, a group of high school-aged girls came from the opposite direction. Their nervous laughter and complaints about the terrain made me realize something: Alexis may be ALL girl at times, what with the princess obsession, need to wear glittery shoes with sundresses everyday, and her general love of all things GIRL, but she does have a good balance of tomboy going on. She wasn't complaining at all about the leaves smacking her in the face, the huge cut on her foot from a branch, or how hard it was to climb in a couple of spots. In fact, she was loving it. A lot.

We continued on, me walking behind her and enjoying the juxtaposition of girlie girl and tomboy that stumbled before me. Alexis was far too busy pointing out all the great sights to bother with staying on the path, and before long, we found ourselves in the middle of a clearing. A dense canopy of trees made it seem as if the sun had already began its descent, but a few small openings in the foliage helped the sun to paint perfectly shaped spotlights here and there.

Alexis stepped directly into one of the solar spotlights, and I asked her to turn around for a second. She stopped her excited explorations long enough for me to capture this:

Other than converting it to black and white, I made no edits to that photo. The light was that perfect. The expression on Alexis' face defies the reality of the moment. It was a moment filled with giggles and smiles and general goofiness, but no matter. For that one nanosecond, she stood in the light with a somber, sad expression on her face. I assume that flash of sad was there because I dared to ask her to pause for a moment.

A threat to tickle her fixed the sad right up:

Looking at this picture now, I realize something. It wasn't that the light was falling perfectly from the sky above. Rather, the light emanated from the eyes below me. Those eyes are the light of my life, the brightest, most vivid, most beautiful light I have ever found in this world.

She is my perfect light.