Getting ready for a big adventure!!! We are leaving tomorrow!

Hello and welcome back friends & family! 

If you're reading this, it's likely because my email that this is how I'll be sharing photos of our upcoming ScamperVan trip--thanks for checking it out!  This trip will be the grand finale to what has felt like a summer of refreshing normalcy.  With easing COVID restrictions and partial vaccination of folks, the kids have been able to enjoy summer camp; we've been able to enjoy an empty home in which to work many days; and, we've been able to return to the public pool--just for fun and with the kids on the swim team.  All bright spots! 

So, tomorrow we pick up our van tomorrow and begin 15 days of adventure together as a family across the country, and in the southwest.  A good friend and neighbor has agreed to take care of our vast menagerie while we travel, so that has given us a lot of peace of mind knowing that Bear, Butterscotch, Marshmallow, Walnut, Goldie, Zebra, Zeebra, Elsa, and Oralee will be in good hands.  Tomorrow night will find us in Memphis and the following night we'll be having dinner with some old peace corps friends of mine and meeting their son for the first time!   Then, off to the panhandle of Texas and by Tuesday we'll be hopefully be rolling into Santa Fe, NM, where our true adventure begins!  If you'd like to check out our itinerary, you can do so here. 

Thanks again for checking in on us!  We love and miss you!

xo, r:)

One Year On. . .

Today is my birthday!  And, in some ways, 39 is a most underwhelming year.  It's not 40.  It's too old to be young.  We're mired fully in all the middle aged stuff of having a mortgage and kids and careers that are not 100% what we thought (or what we thought at all) and care taking our kids and wondering about random aches and pains that appear in the night. . .but for me it is a good year and a momentous one.  In some ways, this birthday marks a return to a sense of normalcy and a "whew!  we've made it through the storm" kinda feeling.  Why's that you might wonder?  Well, just these little miracles that came to us just over a year ago: