Is it where you live? Where you are from? Chris and I often say home is simply each other.
Or if home is indeed "where the heart is," then I have 4 places that are home to me on this earth...Illinois where I was born and raised and where my roots and family remain...Kenya where my eyes were opened and my heart was shaped...California where I went to college, met the love of my life, and now raise my own family...and Colorado where we learned to be a couple and a family, furthered our educations, and started careers.
We recently returned from a visit to CO, the place we called home for the first 7 years of our marriage...
This trip wasn't about doing, it was about being. Being in a very special place with very special people.
The special people who knew us before we had kids. People who were in our house a lot and people who opened their homes to us. People who were there when we welcomed our first child, and joined us in saying good-bye to the child we never got the chance to know. People who we have walked and prayed with during joys and struggles and journeys of their own.
It was a quick trip so there were people we didn't get to see as much as we would have liked (or at all), but it was simply wonderful to be face-to-face, even briefly, with so many dear people.
During our visit the adults spent a lot of time on back patios and porches just talking, while the kids spent a lot of time in backyards and basements playing (ahhhhh, I miss basements!). It was so special to see Samantha with her "first friends." Just like the adults, the kids picked up right where they left off.
We had a mini-reunion with our "Game Group" of 5 years. It's hard to believe that when we started getting together once a month with these four couples there were only 3 kids...and now there are 11 (and 3 on the way!). Our reunion wasn't quite complete this time and we greatly missed our friends who recently moved to Wisconsin. Here are 8 of the Game Group kiddos together...
We were reminded of so many things we loved about our years in Colorado... those magnificent Rocky Mountains always present in the distance, the UNBELIEVABLE parks, the "light rail" that would take me to school and deliver us to the city and baseball games, our first official home and neighborhood, that crisp mountain air, the long and warm summer nights, the endless bike trails, the trees!, the "workplace family" I had for 3+ years at Chinese Children Adoption International .
And just to "keep it real" I will also mention that we were reminded of things we don't necessarily miss about Colorado....the DRY air (that left Abby and me with straight hair), the air-conditioning, the really passive drivers (we even got to witness one of our favorite CO driver moves where someone who wasn't aggressive enough on the on-ramp came to a complete stop and signaled in order to be let in to the traffic flow...yeah, good luck with that).
It was such a great trip that we were easily able to overlook "the little inconveniences" like kids getting altitude sickness, or the 2 year old who spiked a fever on the plane ride home, or the fact that our really good deal on Priceline for the rental car was completely negated by the cost of adding that dang carseat (what a rookie travel move...note to self, NEVER click the little box that says "add a toddler car seat," just lug yours through the airport for crying out loud!).
The only disappointment of this trip was that the two places I wanted to eat at most were both closed down. WHAAAAT? Come on Spicy Pickle and Tokyo Joes...give a pregnant woman a break!
A BIG thank you to these fine people, our incredible hosts and friends who spoiled us rotten!
Hopefully we will be back to CO sooner than later, even when we become a family of five.
And hopefully friends will keep coming out west to spend time with us in the newest place we call home.
Until then we have the phone, the computer, and the memories of this trip to keep us connected.
