The Park

It's my favorite season and every year I feel so blessed when it comes back around. We're lucky that there's a beautiful park where we live and it's going to be the perfect spot to celebrate the changing seasons. 

We walked around today in the warm sun, enjoying the beauty and colors.  

I stay focused on gratitude, thankful for all that I have.

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Preschool!

The kids have had so many FIRSTS this year, it's so great how resilient they are. How willing to try new things. Our little Buddy had been at his same childcare center since he was four months old. It was also our church, so it was a second home to us all. When he started preschool last year, it wasn't a huge deal - just a move down the hall.

This year though, what a difference! A whole new experience in a whole new place. Buddy started preschool the Tuesday after Labor Day. We are so lucky that Jay's first cousin had invited us to enroll at the preschool at her church, where she's the teacher this year. It is working out so perfectly, I'm so pleased with what a smooth transition it's been! He's also quite pleased at the fact that he gets picked up "before lunch" and it's just three days a week. Something he likes to point out to his sister at every opportunity!

                                       Posing with big sister, so excited to go to school now too!

                                    I love this one, all sweet with each other and ready for school.

                                                          Ready to go in...what a big day!

Would I take so many changes in stride the way that they have? Not sure. They are my inspiration to not dwell on things and just live in the moment. It has worked out great for them!

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Jolly Old England

First time on an airplane, first time in another country, first time to see the Atlantic Ocean

When I was eighteen, just weeks after graduating high school, I had the joy of traveling to Great Britain with classmates, our English teacher and a few chaperones. It was certainly the farthest I'd been from home and still is.

I loved every minute of that trip. While friends took naps on the bus, I sat with my face practically pressed to the window. I didn't want to miss one hillside, one fence, one barn. Thinking about it now, I get giddy just imagining 18-year old me drinking tea at breakfast with my best friend. Peeking out the hotel window at the lights of London. Ordering a drink! in the hotel bar, legally. Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Canterbury, Bath, Brighton, London. It was AMAZING.

My mom's best friend travels a lot, she's seen so many places and actually took this trip with us as one of the grown ups on the tour. When I got emotional looking out from the top of Dover Castle, she said that I've surely lived in Dover in a past life. She was certain.

One pastime I've happily picked back up since staying home this fall is reading for pleasure. By pure coincidence I picked up a couple of novels by English authors at the library. As I've finished each one, I feel like every thought in my head has a British accent. This reading led to watching several of my favorite Jane Austen movies, which led to watching a British miniseries, which led to watching a movie about The Young Victoria. Netflix now recommends British Period Pieces to me in its creepy "I know what you're watching" way. I've taken most of their picks and loved them all. My brain continues thinking in a British accent and I wish I could find a way to use bollocks in daily conversation. I start calling things bit and saying 'round. I'm a wannabe. Wanna be British.

Today I began reading a biography about Queen Victoria and will then move on to a historical fiction piece about London. I can't get enough.

I hope some day that we can take a family trip to England. I'd love to take J to Stratford-upon-Avon, he loves Shakespeare. And I just know that he'd enjoy Oxford in the same way that I did. I'd love to retrace my teenage tour as an adult, to take it all in again.

Maybe if I start saving now, we can go when B

graduates from high school. I may have to start a shoebox.

For that's how it started for me then. I had a shoebox with a hole in the top. When I got to England I used that money to buy an Oxford sweatshirt, some purple pleather shoes, and a Gap tshirt (what the?!). It was the trip of a lifetime and I hope to share it someday with my family.

Until then, I guess I'll have to settle for movies and books...

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Grow where you are planted

Every afternoon we head back to the elementary school around 3. We park a little ways up the hill and walk over to get B. He waits with me or runs off to the playground. Good exercise, fresh air, a nice break in the afternoon.

Today he was fascinated by the grass, sprouting up tall and blooming. He picked me a bouquet. I was so happy to tell him what I knew about seeds and wind. It hit me right then how happy I am for this time. He's just four and so open to the world and learning. I'm so happy for the extra time I've got with him...and his sister...time that wasn't there before. That somehow maybe it will be what lingers in their memories. Picking grass on the walk up to see sis. Walking out from second grade and there's mom. Maybe she's looking a little worse for the wear, maybe she gets grumpy sometimes. But she's mom and she's there. Every day.

And so it is that I try to see past recent frustrations, trials, and even the kids' sadness over friends they are missing.

I tell them that home is wherever we are together, as a family. That Omaha would not be home without daddy. So here we are, making a home together.

And I do my best to let my kids bloom here, not unlike the grass in my kitchen window.


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