Happy to be home

The news that we would be moving back came a bit quickly although our general sentiment about wanting to be closer to family and friends has been growing over the last couple years.

Before we left Uganda, I was sort of expressing that I thought it would be hard on the kids as Uganda has been their only home.  The woman I was talking to said that when they left Thailand after many years, the "shock" of the move was greatly mitigated because they had moved back to the same area as family and the value/reality of being near family was intuitively a good thing even for younger children.
Anyway, I would say that we are finding that to be true.  Though the kids do miss Uganda and have had some bumps (anxiety, sadness, some bad dreams), they are largely seeming secure and settled much quicker than I was expecting.

Some photo highlights below.  Not shown are some great visits with friends this summer (Mehls, Anna, Jen and Joel, Ellie and her family, Gwyn--Lisa and Eddie, Christine) and visits with some friends on the horizon.  

A huge reason we wanted to be back: FAMILY!

We had lovely summer visits with my siblings and their kids (our newest adorable nephew came to PA this summer)

Some joys of being back in the homeland:
1. Awesome museums
2. Baseball games
3. Time with Grandma (and Grandpa but I don't have a photo!)
4. The "big city"-- Girls were going up and down the escalator near Macys.  Most shopping/arcade/glittery wonder is still pretty exciting esp for the girls.

the unexamined life

"the unexamined life is not worth living"--Socrates

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” 

― Søren Kierkegaard

So, this is where I am a bit in our current state of life. 

(Addendum-- in looking up the Kierkegaard quotation I found a gold mine of quotations that I love-- guess some day I should read more Kierkegaard.  I think he was my kind of thinker. :) 

I'll attach a round of photos that record some lovely things of the last five months.   We are settling in well all in all.  But I do find that due to the significance of the move, the surreal element of how this life relates to our prior decade+, the sheer quantity of details that has come with the move, and the energy that I've committed primarily to helping the kids feel settled, I am somewhere in limbo land of my own self-awareness. 

But, as per Kierkegaard's guidance, I do not want to stay in this mode for too long as I do think our spiritual life is very much tied to our own self-knowledge and our own development/care for who we are and what makes up our days. 

Okay, more specific blogs to come but just wanted to check in and explain the lack of my "unexamined life". 

Addendum: More quotations:

“The function of prayer is not to influence God, but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.” 

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” 

“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” 

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death

“I see it all perfectly; there are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

“The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have.”
― Søren Kierkegaard