I am finally able to sit down to my blog and write a little about my reflections at the end of an unusual summer. Our family has traditionally made a point of visiting our ranch at least once a month during the summer, when everyone has time off of school; this year, circumstances intervened to chart a different course. For one thing, there was that blasted foot injury of mine which had me laid up for three weeks. Then there was a six week span during which, every Saturday, Paul and I spent the day in Gilbert attending a Foster Care licensing class. Mother and I had been planning to take a trip up north to MN in July (so that she could sort through and clear out the remainder of her belongings that have been languishing in a storage unit there for the past couple of years), but due to the scheduling of the class, we had to change our travel plans. Then, the week before the trip, I had a checkup that indicated an anomaly, was called back for a second look, and was told that I would need a biopsy — and due to my travel plans, it had to wait until I got back. So it was that, the day before our final class, Mother flew north for her month-long stay with Doug his family. The day of our final class, Jeff flew up to join them for a week. And two days later, I left town for my first solo-vacation ever…. filled with uncertainties, and pondering in a new way the wondrous gravity of life, death, love and family. Though I have traveled many times by air with all four of my children, at this particular time, it was a blessing to be alone and just be able to rest my mind a little from the concerns of minding the whereabouts of everyone else.
I arrived on Monday, and in all honesty, the first couple of days are kind of a blur… this is what happens when I don’t blog along the way, I forget! I remember taking a drive all over Fargo and Moorhead with Doug, Sarah and Jeff, seeing the tremendous growth that has exploded there over the last few years, and stopping to walk through Sts. Anne and Joachim Catholic Church, a huge and stunningly beautiful newly built church in South Fargo that has greatly renewed my hope for the future of church architecture. But despite whatever else I have forgotten, what I know is that I was among my lovely family during the day, and staying with my bestie, Vicki, at her beautiful West Fargo home every night, and it was a wonderful and deeply restorative time for my soul.
Here are a few photos from around the house, I believe these were all taken on Wednesday. In these photos are Doug and Sarah’s adorable blonde, blue-eyed children: Joey, Margaret, and Jack; also, the currently pink-haired Alicia, and her little red-head, Reagan, and Catherine’s little boy Eli (I am sad that I missed getting a picture of my oldest niece, but the shot of her little guy’s surprise-face is priceless!) – then there’s Doug himself, hamming for the camera, and I think one shot of Jeff pondering the Rubik’s cube he just solved.
