I'm Going Home. . .

TO THE PLACE WHERE I BELONG. . .

I guess I'm not really sure if I ever blogged about this, but we're heading back to the States in December!! THREE weeks from Tuesday to be exact!! Our original plan (when we moved here) was to return one year from our entry date, meaning we weren't going to visit until April/May of 2010. However, Kevin's younger brother Tim decided he just couldn't wait any longer to marry the love of his life, so he proposed to Bethany and they set their wedding date for December 26th!!! YAY FOR THEM!! There are a few events in our lives that we decided we wouldn't miss and this was one of them! We were a little concerned about the cost of the trip because we knew we'd have to pay for our tickets if we went before the one-year mark. Well. . . Deere has decided to let us take our home-leave early AND they will cover the expense of our plane tickets!! WOW!! We would have gone home regardless, but that was a humongous blessing! Thanks, Uncle John.

Today I had an overwhelming sense of excitement for our trip! I've had mixed emotions over the last few months. Life is here now, but home is there, but it's really not there, although I spent so much time there that it's really there, but I don't fit there anymore, but I really really miss my friends and family there, so I feel like I should be there, but I kind of have my place here now, and it's oh so very sweet some days, and I want to make the most of my time here, but it's just so hard some days and I long for the ease and simplicity of life there, but I'm growing in so many ways here, and I wouldn't give up that growth for anything, except maybe I'd like to eat at El Rancho Grande and have a Papa Murphy's Pepperoni/Mushroom pizza and eat cookie dough out of the container with a spoon, and throw my toilet paper in a toilet instead of a trash can next to the toilet, and not have to think about how to form my next sentence with the limited words I know, but then I'd miss out on the joy of being able to communicate in a totally different language, but it would be so great to just talk and talk and listen and totally understand and be understood, and well, it's just been how my mind has been lately. HOWEVER, today, my thoughts were more along the lines of I can't wait to see some of my favorite girlfriends and their kids and even their husbands and I can't wait to wander aimlessly around WalMart (yes, it's true), and flush my toilet paper, and sit on a couch with very very fun friends, and watch Emma play with other little kiddos, and see some snow, and hug my dad and my sisters and brothers, and drink Grandma's punch around Christmas, and watch my brother-in-law marry his girl, and read every sign I can and know full well that I understand what it says, and drink some yummy Starbuck's Americanos (or Ping's or Lucky Rooster or Big Apple Bagel or Panera Americanos), and hold the new babies in my friends' lives, and celebrate Christmas with my in-laws, and watch Emma play with her grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles and tell them all the new things she's learned (face-to-face instead of through a computer screen), and maybe even build a snowman:) and go to church and just enjoy the country I was born and raised in! That's just the start of it. I think I've gone from wanting to stay here and not interrupt the growth I've been experiencing TO I just want to go home tomorrow!! Well, three weeks will be here soon enough and I am OH SO VERY EXCITED!!!
PS We'll fly into Kansas City on Dec. 16th (after a short visit in Dallas with my oldest sister). Then we'll drive to Ottumwa and return to Kansas on the 23rd. Sometime after the wedding, around the 29-30th, we'll drive to Goodland and then on to Denver. We'll fly out of Denver on January 4th (our anniversary!!).