Nauvoo

 Nauvoo is especially charming in mid October. The leaves have turned colors but still hang to the trees. Sidewalks, shops, and the temple grounds are nearly empty and on the particular day my mom, brother, and I visited Nauvoo there was a certain autumn stillness that made the city feel like it had been preserved just for us.

re-establishing

“I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance.”― Beryl Markham, West with the Night 

 This past month we have all experienced pangs of home sickness - for our family in Alaska and Utah, for the mountains, for DC, and for all things familiar.  This month it has all sunk that this, Iowa, is where we live. Our Iowa momentum will pick up but the lag, and the the inevitable period of readjustment, has caught me feeling a bit flat-footed.

It's tricky to know exactly how to establish ones self after being uprooted.  It's hard to leave behind kindred spirits, daily rituals, and the connections that make us feel integrated into our own lives. In Iowa I may have an obnoxiously empty schedule. But, I also have 3 cheeky, snuggle-seeking kids that follow me around asking me for hot chocolate and begging me to take them swimming (to which I happily relent.) When it's all boiled down, these kids of mine make me feel right at home wherever I am.  So while I'm not quite sure how I fit into Iowa yet, I'm certain I'll find that nitch. 

Nana and Papa's Visit

Home is wherever your family is.  This month we were able to have our families visit from Utah and Alaska. They helped us break-in Iowa, set-up our house, create some memories, and allowed us feel a little more at home here. I'll post about each visit later this week but these pictures were taken by Leisa, Brady's mom, and they capture the essence of Iowa, the cuteness of our kids, and their love that we can never seem to get enough of.