November First

We moved at the beginning of February to a new town and in the middle of a terrible rain storm.

Life was fairly gloomy at the time. Sick, pregnant, and stressed, we were betting all of our chips on a sunnier future after all of the strife. That very first night in our ‘new’ home, we woke up to something we’d never seen in our own yard.

    

We woke up feeling like we were truly starting a new day, chapter, life.

Of course, then it continued to rain/snow for the next 5 months and I continued in illness and thing were generally pretty poopy. When the sun finally came out to stay, I was out of school for the summer, towards the end of pregnancy, and life improved dramatically. Through the gut-wrenching process of selling our home, we found ourselves in the mountains where our own yard smells like camping and with a swimming pool/spa to soak away the days. It finally felt like things were looking up and we found ourselves enjoying long, warm nights playing together as a family and feeling very lucky. And even after Annie was born, we spent our afternoons poolside, eating al fresco, exploring the nature around us, meeting the town, and soaking in sunshiny happiness. We finally relaxed and allowed ourselves to live in the moment. It was the summer . . . that was.  After we brought Annie home, Justin stayed home for a couple months and we all settled into a closeness we’ll always remember enviously. It was one of the best summers we’ll ever have.

  

 

 

 

It’s hard to tell around here when the summer ends, since it’s still very warm and we’re all still hanging out in our flip-flops and tank tops. But I guess now that it’s November and Thanksgiving is a few weeks away, it’s time to say so long summer. And as we face another very tough year ahead (the cuts just keep on coming!), we’ll always have those warm months of 2011 to fall back on in our minds’ eye as the moment when time stood still and we became a family of four.