There's nothing quite like re-starting a blog after, let's see, almost 7 years?!? How much has changed! How much we've changed!
We are now in Louisville, Colorado, after 7 years in Mountain View, California. We felt God give us the ok to move after a tumultuous 2012 pushed us to re-evaluate our vision, priorities, and future lifestyle. So we followed the desire of our hearts & moved 1,400 miles to live near the Rocky Mountains in a smaller town with more space, slower lifestyle, and more affordable housing.
Leaving behind our friends and family was very hard. In fact, many days it is painful to be without community. We are being intentional about meeting new friends and getting plugged into a new church and homeschool group, but it takes time for new relationships to grow close. We are also trying to be intentional to stay in touch with our friends in Cali; hence this blog.
So these past few weeks we finally got back on a good schedule for life and school. I am able to cover everything, lesson plan ahead of time, and work in lots of outdoor "P.E.". We've gone for bike rides, met neighbors in the open space, gone to parks, met up with a homeschool group at a park, slid on ice on a lake, honked at geese, shoveled sidewalks, made a snowman, had snowball fights, climbed trees, swung on a homemade tire swing, found forts, examined melting snow water running down the street and built a dam... Lots of adventures for former city kids!
This has been my favorite part of living here: getting to re-create a lot of my childhood memories with the boys. I grew up on 18 acres of trees and fields outside a small town in Wisconsin, and my parents were firm believers in limiting our time inside watching TV and playing video games (in fact, Nintendo was banned from our house!). We were constantly outside exploring, making up pretend games, building "fires" (really just piles of sticks we pretended to light as we knew better than to create a real fire!), making forts, hunting with BB guns, ice skating, watching the valley flood in the springtime, etc. I loved it. So now it is much easier to share those things with the boys.
The hardest part of living here is being without friends. I miss friends stopping by during the day, meeting us at the park, inviting us to supper. We made friends with 1 new family--fellow visitors at a local church, we connected quickly even though we are in different seasons of life. We went to their house for supper, and have had them here too, which was great. And we have randomly met neighbor kids outside, as well as invited a neighbor boy to play here or walk to the park with us. But so much is still missing of the rich, vibrant, and varied friendships we previously had. And as much as I am an introvert, there is something about regularly meeting up with friends that recharges me (maybe a big part is the grown-up conversation?!). I miss that. I need that. Being outside in fresh air with the quiet sounds of forests and fields does much to refresh my spirit, but I need people outside my immediate family to love and journey alongside of.
I have been reading Luke 6:27-54 in the Message the past few nights--I can't leave that chapter because I keep seeing new things in it. It convicted me to be the friend I want others to be to me... So the plan is to bake cookies this weekend and take them to neighbors on Saturday afternoon. I have had this idea for a long time but have not executed on it (I am much better at thinking of things than doing them, ha ha). It's time to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and to stop making excuses for why I don't do the things I want to do! Thanks for the self-pep talk. :)
I asked Matt what he wanted to write about work, and he said to say it is crazy and there's too much of it. :) He also misses his friends desperately. I think he really needs guys to tech out with too. On the flip side, it is nice to have him here for lunch everyday, and he is hoping to take on math and Bible teaching in the morning for the boys. That would be awesome for everyone.
The boys all like it here for different reasons, but miss their friends too. We have friends' and family Christmas photos up on our pantry door, and daily they stop by to point at them (and almost accidentally pull the photos off the wall...). We all miss you all!
I think that's it for today. Next time maybe I will write more about the boys individually. But for now, laundry is calling my name...
