The best things about being home

Strangely, the transition from Poland to home has been rather easy. I thought it would be weird to drive a car again, after a year of abstention, or to understand what strangers say to me. But it's not. It feels totally and completely normal. So I guess home will always be home. It's where my thought's escaping, where the music's playing, and also where the heart is, I suppose.

Anyway, blabbity blab, here's a list of some of the best things about being here, in no particular order:

1. Seeing family.

Anna, Natalie (Trevor's sister), and Grandma Ban-k-s (which is how Anna says it)

eating lemons, like a true Banks

the lower face of Trevor's brother Devan and our new nephew Brayden...

...and his twin-sister Xiomara! So cute!

nephew Jedrik, Anna, and Trevor's brother Matt
cousins Emme, Anna, and Grace

some of the Scoresby grandkids

2. The small luxuries. Like making brownies a couple weeks ago and reaching for a wisk before I realized that I could instead enjoy the ease and convenience of a modern electric mixer. Or pre-measured butter or shortening. Or not converting my favorite recipes into metric measurements. Or taking a shower in a shower that's bigger than a telephone booth. Or giving Anna a bath in a bathtub instead of a telephone booth-sized shower.

3. Eating grapes again! I've already discussed this topic to death on here and I'm trying to cut down on the speeches I seem to give every time I eat a bunch, but I still love them so they're worth mentioning here, yet again.

4. Having an occasion to capture this:


5. Making a pie (with my mother closely supervising) for the very first time. It was peach; it was delicious.

6. Catching Anna redhanded. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the pun.)

Don't you love the look of complete shame and regret on her face?

7. Enjoying the out-of-doors as Anna plays in her "pool." Interestingly, baby pools are hard to come by this late in the season...


8. Getting to feed the two cows in our backyard. For the first time ever, I got to feed the cows tonight (only because my parents are out of town and my sister forgot). We've had cows off and on, growing up, and tonight I got to walk in the pasture, among the poo, and feel for just a second like I was going to be trampled. I also unnecessarily used a pitch fork to haul the hay, just because I wanted to feel authentic.

9. Taking Anna to Farm Country. I think I've seen this exact photo, except with different people, on like, a hundred other blogs. But where you display farm animals, there small children will be also. Our cows are cooler, by the way.


10. Having all of our packing done. (Now that I write this, I'm reminded of a few more boxes I still need to go through. But we're so very close to being done that I'm leaving it. Moving sucks.)

11. Seeing friends again. Like the ones who were in our old ward, like old neighbors from my childhood, and like the ones I honestly haven't talked to since 6th grade. Good times all around, folks.