Day 158.

My church had a wonderful service of healing and light this morning. It felt so good to be in the presence of our family...our incredible church family that is sticking together in some pretty difficult times.

I am grateful for healing.

How fantastic to see a body of believers so broken, but yet coming together to share The Lord's Supper with one another, receive annointing together, and sing praise and worship to God. It was as hopeful as I have felt in a long time. God's grace is forever sustaining...I am humbled.

Day 157.

We went to my cousin's daughter's one year old birthday part this afternoon. All the fun you can expect from a one-year-old party - the funny faces as she tasted her cupcake, the joy of the wrapping paper, the mini-meltdowns over ripping toys out of her hands that she just opened (to open something else of course). So cute.

There were some extended family that I hadn't seen for awhile there, and we got to talking about our upcoming family reunion this August, and I just got all warm and fuzzy.

I am grateful for family heritage.

I have such good memories growing up with my cousins (on both my mom and dad's sides). And so now, as adults, it's so fun to be having children together and going through a totally different faze of our lives.

The foundation that holds us together is our family - mainly our grandparents, which we share, and who we all have such fond memories of. I loved seeing pictures of my Grandpa Joe and Grandma Frances sitting on a table at my cousin's house. I just felt like I belonged there, and that both of them were smiling down from heaven on us...having such a nice afternoon together.

Day 156.

After dinner I was trying to convince Jason to give the kids a bath. They desperately needed one after almost a week without AND sunscreen on today. Yikes. But I just really hate giving baths. I don't have the energy or creativity by the evening to be fun at bathtime. I guess I should do more morning baths.

The problem was that he wasn't being convinced, and the kids were listening to our whole conversation. I was ashamed that we were both trying to get out of giving them a bath...in front of them. I didn't feel like a very good example.

I am grateful for having my own live-in marriage therapists.

Dylan cut through our conversation in a very calm, but firm voice:
"Guys, let's just not talk about this anymore."
Noah repeated for added emphasis (and comic relief):
"Guys, you not talk about this anymore."

Ok, we're done. I lose. I'm giving the bath.

Day 155

I was super sad to leave Colorado. Super excited to see the Gingerich family in Kalona. Again super sad to leave them after only seeing them for one morning in beautiful sunny Iowa. But,

I am grateful to be home.

I missed:
- my wonderful, amazing husband who looks even cuter than I remembered. :)
- my porch, and my plants (some of which got trampled by a downpour while Jason was at school one day...)
- my kitchen
- my bed - although lara, the bed is really comfortable in the guest room!
- my laptop (is that sad? i missed my bookmark toolbar)
- my neighborhood. It felt so good to be rolling into hyde park this evening.
- my couch...which I have yet to curl up on because I have been teaching my class all night and now Jason is sprawled out...hmmmm

It's good to be home.

Day 154.

Today could have been a horrible, terrible day of driving, whining, tiredness, muscle aches and crying. But it really wasn't. It went by quickly, and we covered four states and 12 hours of driving between the hours of 7:30am and 10:00pm. It was extremely successful.

I am grateful for this very gift of a day.

I'm back in eastern Iowa spending the night with family and my kids are snoozing soundly in the next room. I'm pumped up on adrenaline, and can't sleep. But we're here safe and sound.

The day flew by - partly due to the wonderful family and friends who called to check up on me...some several times a day. And partly, it went so fast because of Tuesdays with Morrie, which I listened to on CD the whole way. It was the perfect length, and I literally finished listening to the book only about 4 miles from my sister-in-law's doorstep.

I have never read that book before, and I'm not sure why. When it came out, I missed the boat - I was in late high school/early college - and I just wasn't reading many books for leisure. And once it had become wildly popular, I guess it felt a little like My Big Fat Greek Wedding to me. A surprise success if you discover it early, but after you've heard all the hype, it just sort of sizzles. So, I never was that interested, sure it wouldn't live up to my expectations.

Fast forward 12 years, and here I am driving back from Colorado, feeling sad about leaving my sister and family, feeling grief over a deeply painful church conflict, looking back on my wonderful children behaving like angels in the backseat, and missing my husband whom I haven't seen in nine days. It was the perfect time in my life for this book. I needed emotion. I needed optimism. I needed to remember why we should savor every moment of this precious life. Even the sad ones. Even the grief-filled ones. To allow the emotions completely, but then to move on. And live for the relationships that all make these things mean something in the first place.

Day 153.

I am grateful to have had this wonderful time in Colorado.

We leave tomorrow morning and start the long trek home to first, Iowa, then Chicago on Thursday. I am not dreading the trip, but not exactly looking forward to it either. We are all really excited to see Jason, but wow, it'll be hard to leave.

In a way, the hard goodbye already happened. We just put the kids to bed (about 2 hours late) and it was traumatic. Especially for Dylan, who just couldn't stop crying. We ended the evening watching a clip of the dance recital Anya and Dylan put on for us yesterday. And when I turned it off, she new what it meant. It was time to go to bed, and we won't see Anya in the morning when we get up real early and get on the road before breakfast. She knew it was time to say goodbye.

I've never seen Dylan cry for something like she did tonight. She's cried harder before, but never deeper. She just kept yelling, "I want to stay here forever! I want to stay here forever!" It broke my heart, because it just plain sucks that we live so far away, and so I couldn't help but start crying over and over again myself. That, of course, made both kids extra upset, seeing both Lara and I crying over the difficult goodbye. And so both Noah and Dylan were bawling uncontrollably at bedtime.

As a mom, it's my instinct to stop my child's crying. To give them a hug, to fix their boo-boo, to alleviate any pain they are feeling. So far, that's been my role. But tonight, I feel like we turned a corner. It was the first time I couldn't fix it. As I held her in my arms as she drifted off to sleep, her breathing was still penetrated by sobs. It had been an emotional cry, and one that couldn't be cured by a hug or soothing song. All I could do was hold Dylan and let her cry. It was a life lesson for her that everything that makes her sad can't be fixed. Some things just are sad, and we have to find it within ourselves to alleviate that pain in some way. For this, it will be hopefully more webcam, writing Anya lots of letters, drawing her lots of pictures, calling her on the phone, and planning for our next visit together. But, unfortunately for us all, that's just not good enough.

Day 152.

No "creative" title. The title is the thing I wait until the last moment to fill in every day on each blog entry. I hate doing the title. I read several blogs that always have the most interesting, creative titles and I just can't live up to that. So,

I am grateful for changing my own blogging rules.

So no more titles. So much less pressure. And really, that makes me grateful for less stress.