You Can't Go Back

I went back to our old home last weekend for Easter. We moved a little over a year ago, and I guess there has been a part of me that wished that we could one day move back there and insert ourselves right back into our old lives. There is always a possibility that Chuck's job could lead us back there one day, however, I realized this past weekend that you can't go back. So many things have changed in the last year. For one, our kids are a year older. Were we to move back, in say five years (this is just a random thought), Nicholas wouldn't be 18 mo old and Patrick wouldn't be a precious first grader anymore. Another change is our previous church. There has been a major upset. Many of our friends have left. Lots of hearts are broken. It would be very hard to worship there right now. Our old house has also changed as well (yes, I know of course we wouldn't live there again). The new owner ripped out all of the landscaping in the front..all of it! It was quite a shock to see. I guess what I learned last weekend was that even though I have longed for my old life in this past year, I have slowly let it go and adjusted to the new life as well. There is so much to take from every experience we have in this life and we can choose to grow as a person and look for new opportunities or we can wish for what once was and what will never be again and have a lot of unhappy days. It is not to say I haven't had my share of unhappy days in the last year because I have, but I am happy now that we are here and we are a family and we will continue to make the best of life. We are so very blessed. This has been our fourth move in our marriage, so I am not unaccustomed to starting a new life. I suppose this last move has been harder because we had so much of our family close by and we had and such a great church family. It was a lot to leave behind, however, we have much to look forward to as well.

Camping

We went camping over Spring Break with our neighbors. We were unprepared for lows in the 40s and we nearly froze. This was a trial run camping trip to see how Nicholas would do and to see if our old tent (from when we used to camp before kids) would be large enough. Well, it was not, but we had a great time anyway.

Nicholas and Ally

Chuck changing lures over and over again for Nicholas.

Paula and Austin roasting bananas! Paula found a recipe online where you peel a small piece of off the banana and then scoop out a sliver. Then you put Nutella and marshmallows and roast it. Chuck said it was really good.

Bentley enjoying marshmallows too!

This picture was from the next weekend when we went camping in Rusk for 2 nights with the Boy Scouts. We only got one picture the entire time. We arrived Friday afternoon and set up camp. It was extremely cold and windy. I made Frito Chili Pie for dinner and when I was cooking the chili on the camp stove, the tarp over the picnic table kept getting blown off the center pole and then the pole would crash down and hit me on the head. Oh, and then there was the rain that all of a sudden came out of nowhere. We brought along thermals and more blankets this time, but we were still cold Friday night. The low was 35 degrees! Saturday, we were to go on a train ride between Rusk and Palestine. It was a 25 mile train ride there and back with an hour and a half lay over. This was all supposed to take 3 hours. Well, 7 hours later, we finally made it back to camp! Our train became disconnected from the engine and they had to send another train. It was such a long day, but the boys did fine. After we got off the train we went to Walmart and bought a propane heater. That helped quite a bit the next night. Many of the families left Saturday because of the freezing cold. It was a weekend I will never forget.