Thankful for a place to call home.

I love where I live now.  I have been in big city suburbs for a long time now.  I have learned how to listen to the traffic report, where all the main roads will take me, and just about how long it will take me to navigate myself to another part of the city.  We have enjoyed the parks and playgrounds, the rivers and mountains nearby, the hikes and trails, and the museums and culture.  This place has definitely become "home" for me.  It is where I have birthed my kiddos, where we have been busy raising them.  We are invested here.  It is everything familiar.

But I do miss my old home--the place where I have spent many, many more seasons of my life.  The place I was born.  The place where I knew everyone, and everyone knew me.  I could drive to a friend's house in another state in less than twenty minutes.  The place where I can point out to my own children all the places I knew and loved.  I don't get to go back enough--and when we do go as a family--it is always rushed.  It seems as if we are always trying to fit as much as we possibly can into an itty bitty amount of time.  And there is never enough time.

This Thanksgiving, I decided not to try.  To just get in the car and go.  To sit and enjoy my extended family. To let my kiddos play in the beautiful weather.  To just be.  I am thankful.  I got to enjoy this:

Swinging in the sunshine at the park down the street

Walks with my kiddos

Posing with my girls

Cousin Love

More cousin love

Kid tables

Kiddos at the big people tables

my now 8 year old

Sometimes it is downright healing to go back.  It isn't the same, but it is part of who I am, and I am learning more and more to appreciate just that--who I am.  So while I love this life I have in the here and now, I am so very thankful to have a place to call home, and even more grateful to get to share it with my kiddos.