Family – Page 10 – everything He gives

apple season

September 25, 2015September 25, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

I should be packing right now for our trip to the beach (leaving in the morning!) but it’s a rainy afternoon and I just have to share these sweet pictures from last week with you before we head out of town. (I am the worst packer–always leave it until the last minute.)

It’s hard to believe we’re in the last week of September already, and that by the time we get back home from our trip, we’ll be into October! The weather has already turned here in the mountains of North Carolina as of this last week, officially. We are in apple country and we are thankful to be surrounded by a ton of awesome orchards + farms! Recently we went with some friends to a local orchard that has a great spot on the top of a mountain, with lots of play areas for kids, animals, tractor rides and of course, apples!

That man in the last picture above was giving us the low-down and handing out buckets, and I have to say he was a true artist. He was super kind and sweet and genuinely interested in chatting with our kiddos and being helpful to our little crew of three mommas (one pregnant!) with seven little ones between us. Things didn’t go 100% smoothly, with all of us having disaster mornings as we attempted to get out the door (at my house, the washing machine was flooding the basement and a glass fell off the counter shattering glass everywhere near my crawling baby girl), and a few melt-downs and tears from the kids. You know, all the usual things. Not to mention, we actually couldn’t find any apples to pick off of the trees because of a late frost and children who weren’t willing to keep hunting down rows of trees. But it was still such a fun time, Phoebe loved hunting for apples to pick, and Noah was both terrified and fascinated by the tractors making rounds of the orchard. We plan to go back in October, get an earlier start and actually pick some apples this time!

(I’m so bummed that my camera decided to focus on the dirt behind this cute little man because he posed so nicely and smiled so sweetly for me!)

We had a picnic in the shade of this big pine tree and it was the perfect end to the busy morning, where my friend Kim and I could actually talk for a bit while our kids refueled and then ran off to play on the swings and playgrounds.

We only came home with one peck of apples, using half for a yummy gluten-free crisp to share with our small group last night, and my kids actually ate it (which is a victory, if you knew them!) We hope to put up some jars of apples for the winter, so we’ll be back!

(ps. here’s the crisp recipe I used, subbing apples for blueberries and adding about 1/3 c. of shredded unsweetened coconut flakes + a dash of cinnamon. i’ve made this recipe ever so many times, usually with blueberries, since reading her book a few years ago and it’s delicious every time!)

the Father’s love

September 15, 2015September 15, 2015 MarthaKimball6 Comments

Well, all the kids have been battling a minor head cold the past few days. We had a quieter weekend with more tasks and mundane work at home to catch up on on Saturday. Yesterday we stayed home from church, not wanting to pass on the sickies, opting instead for a quiet easy walk at nearby Lake Powhatan. We always ache to be with our church family, but the days when we are forced to stay home with feverish babies are days to receive with open hands, a good sort of rest and quietness. We basked in the sun and the glorious first-fall-feeling day, all bundled up to keep little sick ones warm in the wind. We spent the afternoon resting, reading, snacking on the porch after naps + looking through old photo albums, then riding bikes in front of our house while dinner simmered on the stove. Simple things, small things, all the things we can easily take for granted. What a gift it is the have each other, to be together, to work through the hard moments when we are all sharp and fractious, stumbling along in our journey to understand grace, offering quiet sorry’s and long hugs. What a sweetness to just let the work sit, as much as we are able, and let our souls sink down deeper in our faithful God.

I’ve been reading through the Gospels all year. I thought I’d be farther by now, but it has been the sweetest, most powerful journey alone with the Lord, just His Word and I, and I’ve had to go so slow to just savor the beauty of all His Spirit has been speaking to me. I’ve chased whatever rabbit trails He’s told me to, sought for understanding only to find usually more questions and mystery. But I have felt so very near to my Savior and so much more reacquainted with His ways, His agenda, His heart beat.

Lately I’ve been in the first few chapters of Luke. You can’t come to early Luke and not feel like it’s Christmas time. It’s just heavy with the anticipation surrounding that time of year. It’s hard to say which Gospel writer I enjoy best, each so distinct and variegated, but I do think it could be Luke. There’s something about the way he turns a phrase and tells a story.

I’ve often wondered what Jesus was like growing up. After the accounts of His birth, we have no details to fill in the gaps between his birth and his 30’s, other than the singular story of Him, recorded by Luke (2:41-52) of Jesus at age twelve. This singular story recording that time when Mary + Joseph lost Jesus for three days, giving us a glimpse into His boyhood and the mysterious way that He was both fully human and fully divine as a child. Here Luke finds it important to tell us that at age twelve, Jesus was beginning to display His independence, His God-ness, His otherness a bit more. His wisdom astounded the leaders + teachers in the synagogue. He was already beginning to be aware that He had to be about His Father’s work. He was already beginning to move away from dependence on His earthly parents with a growing awakening to His calling, a strength, a focus, a settledness and resolve. Yet, when His parents scolded Him in their great relief to have found Him, the Scriptures tell us He submitted Himself to them. Willingly, He submitted His God-ness to live under their human, yet God-given, authority.

From this point on, in every Gospel account, we don’t see Jesus do a thing until He has first been baptized by John the Baptizer and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him. Every work of Jesus thereafter recorded in the Scriptures flows from the infilling of the Holy Spirit, an outpouring from within. His work is preceded by His baptism, the Father’s pronouncement of Sonship + good pleasure over Him. This is how His work begins. This is where our work must begin also. First, our own house in order. First, our own soul. First, our own rootedness + settledness in our identity as His dearly loved child. First, our own experience of His love lavished on us.

Then all our work can flow from the awareness that He is the orchestrator behind it, the generator of it. The sustainer of us in it. Then, and only then, our identity is not dependent on our work or our success, but in that deeply personal work He has already accomplished in us in the secret place with Him. This frees us up from striving for a name, striving for an outcome, being crippled by the negative response of others–whether that be indifference, unpopularity, misunderstanding, or plain criticism. Only when we know we are settled securely in the Father’s love + good-pleasure over us do we really have anything to pour out onto others.

“A voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son, with you I am well-pleased.'”
(Luke 3:22)

How He would need these words in the days to come. He went straight up out of the waters of this moment into the bone dry heat of the desert to fast and be tempted by Satan for 40 days and nights. How He would need those words to draw upon in order to finish His course, in all the ways that the coming days would test His certainty of His Father’s love and good-pleasure over Him. How He would need those words when He hung on the cross in His bleakest and most desperate moment, when He would cry out, “Father, why have You forsaken Me?”

Maybe you need those words today, too, in your Tuesday work. In your ordinary moments and your boring mundane. In the tasks that you are putting your hand to, the hidden work that no one sees, the uncelebrated and passed-over, the thankless efforts. May He speak His love over you today as you head into a new week. May your own soul be at rest in Him, so that you can abide in that place even while heading into the fray.

Summer is coming to a quiet little end around here, melting sleepily away into chilly morning air. (We still have a beach trip planned, so I’m hoping some warmth hangs around for a little while longer!) The goldenrod are blazing their signal, summer giving way to fall.

This next picture was taken by Phoebe:

These three were taken by Noah:

I love seeing their little happy fingers holding the camera and clicking away. I love seeing their perspective.

for your Tuesday

September 8, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

“The discovery of God lies in the daily + the ordinary, not in the spectacular and the heroic. If we cannot find God in the routines of home and shop, then we will not find him at all. Ours is to be a symphonic piety in which all the activities of work and play and family and worship and sex and sleep are the holy habitats of the eternal.”
Richard Foster, Prayer

“Small things don’t always turn into big things. But all things begin small, especially in the kingdom of God. Acorns become oak tress. Embryos become President. Life starts with a breath. Love starts with hello.

Tuesday reminds me to accept the beauty of smallness, hiddenness, and the secret work of Christ in the deepest part of who I am. I want to let him come out of me in any way he wants, no matter how it may seem to me–whether that be in one big way or in a million little ways.

While I stay small in the presence of Christ, I’m aware of his invitation to me, to stand on tiptoe and see, as my dad often says, beyond what is to what could be. And this doesn’t mean I am to dream big and amazing things for God. Rather, it means I am to believe in a big and amazing God, period. I can trust him to be himself even as I dare to be myself.

And maybe as I do that, I’ll realize that starting small isn’ t a means to a bigger end, rather I start small because it’s what I am. And this is good and right and holy. Who would despise the day of small things?

As citizens of an invisible kingdom, we refuse to take our living cues from a world that say to build, grow, measure, and rush to keep up. Instead we take our cues from the new hope alive within us, from the life of Christ who has made our hearts his home. We’ll stop trying to keep up with the fast-moving world and, instead, we’ll settle down and keep company with the small moments of our lives.

We’ll pay attention to them, listen to what they have to teach us, not rush by them as if they are unimportant. We know better than that by now. We know the way these small moments link arms with one another to form the timelines of our lives. Moments: the keys to the kingdom. We know how we approach, consider, react, and exist within these small moments are indicators of how we approach, react, and exist in our whole lives. We can’t afford to miss them.”

Emily Freeman, Simply Tuesday

saying goodbye to the house

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

A couple of weeks ago we made a last-minute weekend trip home to my in-laws home in South Carolina. They’ve recently decided to chase a dream of theirs and move to the beach, leaving behind this house they raised their kids in for the past twenty something years. My husband, who is not really the sentimental sort, wanted to go see them and “say goodbye to the house.”

A house lived in this long holds a lot of life. It is the bones of the family, in a way, holding, bearing weight, giving structure. Most of my husband’s memories and biggest moments happened in these walls. The Christmas mornings spent sitting with his brother + sister at the top of the stairs waiting for mom and dad to say they could come down. The timeouts in their bedrooms. His first love. His first broken heart. All the big moments, all the ordinary + mundane moments, too, that make up a life. I remember vividly my first visit to his home, this, his world. I remember playing guitar on the deck of the pool, laying down on his arm, feeling him counting on his fingers behind my head, counting the months until he would propose. I remember coming to surprise his parents, driving the 2 hours from North Carolina where we live to tell them about their first grand baby growing in my womb. It’s a special thing to bring your children home to the house you were raised in, seeing them toddling on the floors so familiar to your own shaping.

It was good that we were able to make it back for a visit one last time, make some more sweet memories together, see the youngest grand baby bond with her Baba for the first time. So long, yellow house!

evening walks

August 28, 2015August 28, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

So this weekend last year I believe was the weekend we moved into this home + this side of town. There’s something about being in a place for a year. Seeing it in all its seasons. There’s something about growing up and changing in a place that seems to mostly stay the same. We live on the backside of a retreat center, in the residential section. It’s sort of an odd arrangement but we love living in a little hidden cove of quiet in the city. It was our first summer experiencing this place with campers coming and going every week, our usual walks interrupted with camp activity and hustle. Now kids are back in school, camps close up for the off season, and we are back to our evening walks all over the deserted retreat campus. The little ones love visiting the lake and “fishing,” looking for the moon and watching the bats in the evening sky darting back and forth. My heart felt full and melancholy at the same time. Seasons come and seasons go.

I was talking with a couple momma friends earlier in the day yesterday about how we feel that nagging sense of being behind sometimes, always behind. In a culture that is always pressing ahead to the “next thing” and the “next stage” it can be awfully hard and terribly counter-cultural to just slow and linger where you are. My daughter will be 5 in December and we’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to start preschool with her this year. But if I’m honest, the only real reason I’m feeling that niggling worry is because I don’t want her to be behind and because so many of her peers are already in school. The reality is, she’s my first. She’s my oldest. And this is probably the last year we will ever have like this, just us at home, days full of errands, play dates, adventures outside, books piled high, dress-up and coloring and cookie baking in the middle of the day. Once she starts school, even homeschool, our minds and schedules will begin to revolve around school. Our freedoms will change a bit, our family dynamic will change. So, as eager as I am to dig into school and embrace that new season ahead, I’ve decided to just linger over this little season right here, with my three little ones at home and the sweet freedom of unscheduled learning. My plan is simple: read a lot, play outside a lot. Probably my number one goal “educationally” this year is to increase and stimulate wonder over their world. To give them a lot of time and attention, play and surprise. To excite them about learning. To learn as we go, but not to worry about it or stress over it. I don’t think “my” way is better than anyone else’s. I’m so thankful for the freedom we have in our own families to choose what works best for our own family dynamic. I’ve thought over these words many times in the past few weeks, taken from Jean Fleming’s book A Mother’s Heart:

Now is the time to get things done. . .
wade in the water,
sit in the sun,
squish my toes
in the mud by the door,
explore the world in a boy just four.

Now is the time to study books,
flowers,
snails,
how a cloud looks;
to ponder “up,”
where God sleeps nights,
why mosquitoes take such big bites.

Later there’ll be time
to sew and clean,
paint the hall
that soft new green,
to make new drapes,
refinish the floor–
Later on. . .when he’s not just four.

Irene Foster, “Time is of the Essence”

Sunday adventures

August 20, 2015August 20, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

We have sort of unintentionally made a little family habit of drawing away on Sundays after worship, pulling away from our ordinary and escaping to the wild places nearby. I love revisiting the same familiar haunts, but my husband is best energized in exploring. So, we’ve sort of made a loose rule to get out somewhere new most Sundays. We pack a bag of easy snacks + quick bites for lunch/dinner (think cold cuts, cheese, crackers, dried fruit, nuts, cold pasta salad, veggies + hummus) and usually skip naps and hit the road after church. The kids love our adventures. We don’t do it primarily for them, to be honest. We do it because it refreshes and quiets and reenergizes us + our marriage in the best way. We do it because we need the shift in perspective. But we definitely do it for them as well. Children are so full of wonder, awe, and a natural ability to enjoy and to go slow. Familiar black swallowtails, bumblebees and wild mountain blueberries become brand new again through their eyes. We love (and sometimes hate) how they continually force us to slow our pace to keep in step with them rather than our usual habit of hurrying them to keep up with us. It’s good for us. Being with them reminds me almost daily of Jesus’ words:

“Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

What is it about children that Jesus found so essential? I wonder if it isn’t their simplicity. Their easy joy over the simplest of wonders. Their unhurried ways. Their bright hopefulness and trust, their dependency without worry. I want to be more like that. When I watch them running and laughing I find myself thinking, they really are the best of us, the best of humanity.

These pictures are from a couple weeks ago. We went back up to Mount Mitchell, the highest peak east of the Mississippi. We used to be in the Mitchell area a ton during our college days (Outdoor Ed majors) and I think the last time I was up there was when my husband and I led a 21-day wilderness backpacking course together in our early years of marriage. Pretty awesome to be back there with kiddos in tow, showing them this beautiful place so special to our hearts + story. It was actually up on commissary where our story together really began.

Afterward we had a little picnic at a nearby overlook, staying long and soaking in the quiet and the evening light. I think these will be some of my favorite snapshots from the summer.

Hanging on

August 18, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

Last week around this time I was scurrying to pack up for a quick little two day-ish visit to one my long-time best college girlfriend’s house in Tennessee. To my shame, I haven’t made the trek to visit her in probably 3 or so years, though she has graciously come to visit me or meet up somewhere multiple times since then. The busyness of these days, the super tight budget that makes a few hours drive a costly luxury–these are the things that have kept me away. Then one day you realize you hardly talk anymore, and it’s okay because you know you have a long stretch of history to draw from and that you will pick up again where you left off. Even still, life is whirring by, some of our children are school-aged, and the easy on-a-whim hang outs are becoming harder. I think as I’ve gotten into these years of parenting a handful of little ones I’ve come to realize how difficult it seems to be to make new friends. I’m not giving up on it, but the challenge has certainly made me treasure my old friendships more and long to do a better job keeping up with them. I’m sure it’s the introvert in me, but I’d rather have a few friendships that go deep than to have my arms stretched full wide with a bunch of shallow ones. Anyway, these days are often lonely and can leave you bewildered wondering who are the friends who are really in the trenches with you? Who you can call or text and ask for prayer in a moment of weakness, desperation, darkness, or celebration? Who are the friends who will stand by you when you are at your worst and gently call you back to the truth? Who are the ones who will be brave and faithful enough to speak words that feel a whole lot like wounds that later prove to be kisses? These are the friends I want to hold on to. The ones I want to make space in the budget for. These are the ones I hope to be roomies with again one day, when we are old widows clinging to rickety walkers, after we’ve buried husbands and kissed great-grandchildren’s newborn skin. These years with young ones will stretch our friendships to the max, but I hope we can always pick up again and find our way back to each other. It was a true gift to spend this time with my sweet friend and her three girls. What a profound wonder to see our little ones all playing together, to share hearts late into the night as we barely hold our eyes open. She sent me off on Thursday with a travel mug full of fresh hot coffee, and in every way I felt full. Hang on to your friends, girls. It’s so worthwhile.

Whatever is life-giving

August 6, 2015August 6, 2015 MarthaKimball5 Comments

It’s Monday again, the beginning on a fresh week. I’m always thankful, the familiar rhythms we keep here, all the while holding loosely as we ride the waves of change. I’m not big into change, I like our “normal.” Since finding out my four-year-old’s diagnosis of Celiacs disease, I’ve been trying to stay afloat in the wild waves of change.

A few weeks back I read these ancient words by John Chrysostrom:

“Lord give us tears and remembrance of death.”

What a thing to pray. Give us tears, Lord. I think of how I’ve felt since finding out the news about Phoebe–like there is an ocean of tears I want to cry but can’t access. It’s just down there somewhere, stuffed beneath.

Give us tears, Lord. Sometimes we just need the release of a good cry.

A few weeks ago I fed our family, stacked clean dishes to drip dry in the sink, kissed them all goodnight and folded tired legs into my car in the dusky evening. I drove over to my friend Megan’s house in a weary silence. She and her husband have a small hobby farm nearby and have been living a simple organic lifestyle, as well as practicing the GAPS diet with their family as part of their journey to health + wholeness. As I continue researching ways to heal my Phoebe’s digestive system to help her grow and gain weight, I needed to talk with someone who’s been down this road ahead of me.

Megan and I used to go to the same church years ago when we lived in a different town. We found each other then with another couple and formed the sweetest little tight-knit community. We discovered I carried our first baby, and Megan discovered she was losing hers. We splintered a bit, then. We took a job forty-five minutes away, and they helped us move in and settle. We said we would stay close, but the distance and busyness of new seasons filled our days. Then they moved closer to where we were, and we ended up taking a job that moved us back toward them once again. Now we are a few minutes away from each other. I haven’t spent much time with her over the past few years, but lately we’ve been trying to squeeze in more visits. These years with young babes and trying to get a start as a family with first homes, it fills our days to the brim.

Pulling up her snaking drive, gravel crunching under tires, the summer evening silence broken by the bleating of newborn baby goats, the quibbling of chickens, the sing-song of crickets. I walked in, we greeted with tired smiles and hugs. Her children were tucked into bed, her husband out of town for the week.

I love being in another woman’s home, I’ve realized–observing her ways, her patterns. It is so sweet to watch someone’s familiar paths–the way she pulled on her farm boots and grabbed a bucket of feed to take to the goats. Our chatter and commiserating and quiet laughter as she tore a handful of mint from her garden, steeping it directly in water, pressing it through, handing me a steaming mug. We sit on her front porch for a long while in the summer evening cool and quiet. Later we move inside, she cuts open the package of a whole chicken, pulling out a drawer, grabbing that particular knife for chopping, the way her fingers unconsciously trace the onion, pulling back the papery skins.

We talk, we pour out honest emotions, we open hearts–all while she moves in the quiet rhythms of her home, her needful tasks. Throwing a load of laundry in (as she apologizes). Wiping out the bag which held her raw milk pick up. Preparing the chicken to boil overnight.

Around her home scriptures were taped, phrases of healing were hung. Index cards taped above the sink forming the shape of a cross. A large paper with the word TRUTH written on it, surrounded by phrases and scriptures such as “God’s pearl” (with scritpure), and “Deserving of watch-care” and “Created to be a nurturer,” hangs in the kitchen above her stove. Stories everywhere. Well-worn paths.

Give us tears and remembrance of death.

Remembrance of death–sounds morbid, and on first reading, my soul shrinks back from this. No, I don’t want to spend time remembering death. But then I think of my Savior’s words: “Remember me. This is my body, broken for you. This is my blood, poured out for you.” He wants us to remember Him, specifically to remember His death. We like to speak of our risen Savior, and indeed our faith is in vain and we are of all people most to be pitied if He did not rise from the dead. Why do our souls resist remembering His death, especially when He told us to do it often? Whatever Jesus instructs us to do, it is life-giving to us. Maybe we live best when we remember keenly our finality.

When I asked her what their whole experience has been with these extreme dietary changes, Megan answered, “Martha, it’s been life-giving to us.” It’s probably what struck me most and stayed with me after our conversation. These changes, these new rhythms to be learned–they are not easy, but they are proving to be life-giving. I am finding the same to be true.

It’s been two months since we began this journey toward a healthy and growing little girl via dietary and lifestyle changes. We are still researching and toying with the GAPS diet and a grain-free/dairy-free diet, but going gluten-free as a bare minimum has been fairly easy. Our rhythms are different. The toaster + bread machine have been replaced by our blender/food processor. Bowls of nuts or rice are often soaking by our sink. Ribbons of zucchini have replaced pasta. Our buying has changed: grass-fed beef gelatin, Kombucha, bulk whole chickens to make weekly portions of bone broth. I’ve been learning about best sources for bulk raw nuts, for filling out pantry with coconut flour, almond flour, medjool dates, tapioca flour, xantham gum, coconut butter, coconut oil, coconut milk.

Papers, printed recipes + stacks of books are scattered all over my kitchen counter. The house cleaning suffers. This process is daunting in many ways, exciting in others, especially as I start to feel a difference and feel better, to see my appetite changing and my body responding. Phoebe seems to be responding, too. Her eyes seem just the slightest hint brighter. Her random occasional low-grade fevers have stopped. She isn’t as tired. Her appetite seems to be improving.

It is difficult, as any major change would be, but it is giving us more life, and for that we are thankful.

* * * * *

A special thanks to Megan and other friends like her (Wendy, Caroline, Liz + Anna, to name a few) who have reached out, shared a ton of resources, words of encouragement and hope. I have found them and their stories to be the most helpful, but I have also been really helped by Carrie Vitt’s cookbook “The Grain-Free Family Table” as well as Danielle Walker’s cookbooks “Against All Grain” and her blog.

Greenville

August 3, 2015August 3, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

A few weeks ago we had to make a trip to Greenville, about an hour or so from where we live, to take our daughter to a Pediatric Gastroenterologist at the Children’s Hospital there. She is terrified of any medical check up of any sort, so we tried to make the day super fun afterward and enjoy some time in this neat town! I’ve never really hung out in Greenville, SC before but it was such a fun, cute spot. After Phoebe’s appointment we took the kids to the Zoo, which was short-lived mainly because it was so incredibly hot and close to lunch time. We had a fun lunch downtown, walked all around, the kids played in the fountain while I ran into Anthropologie to scour their sale section (all the heart eyes), and we cooled off with the yummiest gelato. It was a special and fun day, and we were all super happy-tired afterwards. We head back this week for Phoebe’s endoscopy, which we are nervous about, but we’re thankful she has some happy memories associated with our time there for us to draw on!

jonathon + laura’s wedding

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

A few weeks ago one of my cousins got married, and it was such a lovely reception in the backyard of his childhood home. The pictures I snapped from the day were sort of random, I realized later (i.e.: no pictures of bride + groom, no pictures of brandon + I, either. No pictures of the ceremony.) Maybe that had something to do with how insane it was to keep up with our two kiddos running wild and nurse/feed the baby, as well as try to snag some dinner (and cake!). Yep.. this season of parenting is awesome, and we love it, but it is busy. My dad grilled meat for the reception, so that’s him there in the chef’s hat, slaving away over the grill. 🙂 And the kids LIVED to climb up in that treehouse in the yard, lower and raise the basket, yelling commands at any passersby to put something in their basket, which they would promptly pull up. We were super thankful + delighted that they had gluten-free cake, as it was the first gathering our little Phoebe has been to where she realized there would be yummy treats she couldn’t have. We had prepped her ahead of time that there would probably be cake and she wouldn’t be able to have it, but that I had packed some gluten-free Oreos for her. She was a bit glum, cake-lover that she is. When we brought her piece to her, she ran with it back to the cake table and double-checked with the servers that this cake was “free gluten” and she could have it. Then she sat by the tree and devoured it. Sometimes its the little things like this that mean a lot when you’re navigating a transition! Anyway, we were super happy to celebrate my cousin + his new bride, and wish them a lifetime of celebration!

Also, on the way home, we drove by this old house where I spent my early growing up years a few streets over from my Aunt + Uncles house. I sort of creepily snapped a photo from the car as we drove by. Lots of special memories wrapped up in this place.. the time I called 911 because my sister wouldn’t let my Molly (American girl) doll play with her Samantha. The time I swallowed a ring in the night while playing a “guess where i’m hiding it” game with my sister when we were supposed to be sleeping. (Guess it wasn’t a bright idea to hide it in my mouth and try to talk.) Lots of tree-climbing. The little play house my dad built for us in the backyard. Swinging on the swingset + singing my heart out. Playing with my BFF Wynne a block or so away. The old lady who lived behind Wynnes house, who we would randomly drop in to visit (unannounced). She had a lot of birds and fed us stale cookies. Riding the bus home and walking down to the house. The crazy rotting squirrel carcass we found in the front yard that was our first intro to maggots. Riding bikes up and down our long street with no shirt on the whole way, like my older brother, but having a vague feeling that maybe a girl shouldn’t be doing that? The best place for trick-or-treating. The neighbor boys laughing at our early bedtime. I guess it’s weird what you remember about a place. Anyway, it was sweet to show it to the kids and to see it again.

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