Seattle 2k15

       Kyle and I just returned to our cute little house from a two week vacation voyage to the homeland. The first few days we spent at my house and Kyle so kindly followed my every whim as we visited with my friends and went to the lake every day. My best friend got home from her mission two months ago and this was the first time we had seen each other in over two years. It was the best!! We also got to got to church in my home ward for the last Sunday before it was reorganized. Talk about tender mercies from the Lord. I felt like my life had gone full circle in that ward. I was born there, grew up there, then on the last week of its existence, I attended with my husband.

       We spent the rest of our time at Kyle's parents' lake house on Lake Tapps. The family calls these family reunions "Lakeation." I have heard stories of lakeation for the past five years and it was so fun to finally participate in one! We boated, swam, played games, trampolined (this is actually a word!), talked, ATE, shopped, and had a blast. It was a week to remember and I am already looking forward to next summer. I would look around often and think "Wow, I get to be part of a new family." It is something so special to marry and then gain a whole new set of people who you love and who love you. How blessed can we get? I won the lottery with these in laws, I'm telling ya....

       We were both so excited to get to Seattle. I had been counting down the days since about a week after our wedding. About 2 days before it was time to leave Seattle, though, we both realized how much we missed Ithaca! We stayed at my parents house the night before we flew back and I looked at my parents and felt sad thinking "I don't know when I'm going to see them again..." It kinda broke my heart. When you live in Utah, or Idaho, it is easy to have visits because you know you will see them again at Christmas or Thanksgiving. But when you live in New York, you might not see them for another year. While I was so sad to think about leaving my sweet parents, whom I adore, I still yearned for Ithaca. I missed our life here--real life. I have come to just love this stage of life that we are in and the place where we get to experience it. 

       Of course we were welcomed home by a warm, humid, ant filled, food lacking apartment, but man is it good to be home. 

----Remind me about this post in the Winter when I stay home and cry all day because it is so cold outside-----