Going Home, part 1

Going home.  

These two words have so many different meanings and so many different feelings attached to them.  For me, going home refers to when I go to visit my parents at their home in TN.  I have never lived in that home; they moved there shortly after One was born.  I don't have a bedroom there or people whom I have grown up with who know stories about me from way back when.  Good grief they don't have hardly any furniture there that was around when I was living with them.  Yet I feel like I'm going home when I visit there.  This is because of who I am going home to, my parents.

This summer I was lucky enough to travel to TN with my six kiddos for 10 days to visit my parents.  Hello tree lined streets, fireflies, humidity, stone walls, southern drawls, ma'ams and sirs, and pure summer fun.  It is here that I actually feel like it's summer as I remember it.  Probably because I'm thousands of miles away from responsibilities to anyone and anything other than my family.  The physical distance from things makes life seem less overwhelming and further away time wise.  Sort of like I can push pause and just forget it all.

Because there are seven of us traveling now, (Huz doesn't come, too much time away from work... or so he says:)) and the fact that we could fly to Hawaii for less than it would cost us to get to TN, the original plan was for me to drive out there by myself with the kids.  However at the last minute (seriously, 2 a.m. two days before I was to leave) Huz found a great flight out of Denver.  We bought plane tickets for the seven of us roundtrip to TN and Huz roundtrip tickets from Denver to SLC, drove to Denver, stayed the night with Huz's aunt and uncle, we flew to TN the next day, Huz flew back home to his vacation, and met back at the airport 10 days later for the drive home.  All for less money than it would have cost to make the drive out there.  Sweet.  Honestly though, I was looking forward to the drive, but I'd probably have been singing a different tune about 1/2 hour into it.

I love love love TN.  My parents will retire soon-ish and have plans to move back to the west to be closer to the rest of the family.  It will be so great to have them back here with us all, but oh, how I will miss TN.  It's beauty and the peace that the distance from my 'real' life offers.  

Here is the beginning of an overview of our final fling before returning to life and school.

 BoyTwo.  This is early on in the ride when everyone is still fresh.

Notice he is no longer in a five point harness!  We still have the child safety lock on (notice where his hands rest...)

 Four

She was in the middle of the middle bench.  Boy trapped, as they call it, by her brothers.

 BoyOne.  He was way into the movie.

 One.  This is her fake smile that says 'I'm not happy right now take the picture.'  One had created a 'suite' for herself in the back side.  But, being the good big sister that she is, and to appease her pleading mother, she agreed to sit in between her two sisters who both wanted to sit by her.  Who, by the way, cannot sit by each other.  One of them (Three) is sort of the x factor and can only sit in a very few locations without there being serious drama.

 Three.  Happy as a lark to be by her big sis.

 Two.  She is such an easy child.  Makes up for her not being an easy baby:)

 Group shot.  

 Driver Huz

Have you ever driven through Wyoming?  Bo-ring.  Like way.  

 When we finally got to CO it was past dinner time.  Huz's Aunt Polly had a delicious dinner of chicken noodle soup and cinnamon rolls waiting for us.  It had been a long time since we last had visited Mark and Polly in CO, over 12 years!!  We usually see them when they are here visiting, so it was fun to be there with them for a change.  Also, obviously none of our kids had ever been to visit them.  They have this fun park right by their house that we took the kids to in order to run them.  They needed some serious sensory input after that car ride!!

 BoyTwo, spinning

 One and BoyOne, climbing.  

Looks like I accidentally left one off of Two and Three.  I'll tack it on at the end.  ok. never mind.  I just finished and it seems to out of place to put a random picture of the two girls at the end of all the TN pics, so just pretend you can see them in basically the same position as One and BoyOne.  thx:)

And now, 

TN

 This is the side of the highway.  I think it is so pretty!  I love that there is vegetation growing right out of the rock.  It amazes me that there is virtually no soil on top for vegetation to grow in.  

 So beautiful.  I'll bet God had fun creating this!

 I live in the desert.  When I come to TN I just cannot get enough of all the trees and green!  I love all the rolling hills and pastures.

 This is in town on the street near my parents home.  I love the little rock wall.  There are walls like that all over that date back to the civil war.

 Tree lined street.  Love them!

 More tree lined streets.

 And again, more tree lined streets.  There are a lot of 'tree tunnels' that we drive through where the trees on either side of the road meet way up at the top and create a sort of tunnel or canopy that you drive beneath.

 I love love love these black fences!  They are so plain and simple but so beautiful!  

I love how they contrast against the green.

 A field near my parents home.  I love farms.  Somehow Huz and I failed to have this talk prior to our marriage.  I remember discussing with him one time after we were married about where we wanted to live when we retired.  I wanted to live on a farm with a corn field and wheat field and some animals and an apple orchard and a white house with a big front porch.  He planned on living near a golf course.  We both thought the other was crazy.  I guess we're sort of at a compromise right now, leaning a little more heavily in his direction.  We are not anywhere near retirement, where we live is fairly rural, some days it feels like we live on a farm between the two dogs, cat, rabbit, salamander and kids, and we are near a golf course.  I'll take it!

 I love barns!

 Sorry about the tree.  This is my favorite house in TN.  Well, at least in the parts of TN that I've seen:)  We were driving and I had a big lense on my my camera so I couldn't zoom out any more than this, but friends, this is my dream.  A white house with a big front porch.  They have a barn, the black fence, some fruit trees and a field.  Love. It.

 A pretty field.  I love how the fields here are lined with trees to mark the property lines.  Sort of like in Ukraine...

more to come