Our first trip home! (Written summer 2014)

***I'm finally getting around to posting all these things I've written over the years. This post is from summer 2014! Someday I'll boot up the computer that has the pictures referenced and upload those too.***

We spent 10 weeks in the states this summer, arriving on May 14th. Something about being stuck in a desert wasteland for 10 months makes every blade of grass shine a little brighter than I remembered. I was awestruck by the beauty of my hometown the first several weeks we were home. It really felt like they had rolled out the red carpet for us--the sun was bright, the grass was dewey, the flowers were wide open and so colorful. It was a sensory overload! So what was the first thing I did in the USA? Go to Target, of course! The variety, selection, and beauty of the cleaning products aisle nearly brought me to tears. We won't even talk about the beauty department. Then there was the baby department--I think I purchased enough Ella's and Plum Baby products to keep them in business for the next several years!

The big reason for our trip was that Travis' sister was getting married! It was a BEAUTIFUL ceremony and we are just thrilled for Jessica and Nate and their exciting new life together.



picture of ellie being a ham and distracting the photogapher
picture of Jessica and Nate

A week before the wedding, Jessica graduated from the KU School of Medicine and Nate graduated from KU School of Law. We are SO proud of these two and all of their hard work!

picture from graduation

Two days after the wedding, we (Travis, Jessica, Nate and I) threw Travis and Jessica's parents a surprise 35th anniversary party. It was really hard to keep quiet about it those weeks leading up to it but no one spilled the beans! I think they were really surprised! Thank you for being such a great example of marriage (both what to do and not to do :-) ) to us young'uns.

picture from party

My cousin's daughter's 5th birthday was the following week and we were so excited to be able to attend. We have lived in Texas since college and this is the first time we have been in KS to help celebrate her birthday. It was a fantastic party complete with bouncy house. Everyone had a great time and I loved that Lucy had an opportunity to play with her cousins!

picture of Lucy and Tris

My brother had driven up from Georgia with his daughter to visit while we were here. Lucy and Tristyn hit it off like they were best friends! I LOVED watching them play together and wish we could get them together more often. Maybe someday we'll all live closer again.

picture of Tris and Lucy--in the rocketship?

After an action packed whirlwind 16 days in Kansas we headed out for Houston. I was actually kind of excited to have to sit in the car for 12 hours and not do anything else! We had a years worth of doctors appointments lined up and a long list of friends to visit with. One of the highlights of our trip to Houston was a fun weekend at Surfside beach with some of our dearest friends. 

picture from beach weekend

I really enjoyed getting to celebrate my birthday in Houston. Travis somehow managed to get a reservation for us at The Pass side of The Pass & Provisions--there just aren't enough adjectives to describe how amazing this meal was! We had 5 creative courses with wine pairings. It was a prix-fix menu and one of those where nothing looked like what I pictured it would from the description. I've never experienced anything like it before, I imagine it's similar to being the guest judge on Iron Chef. (Iron Chef, if you ever need a guest judge, I'm your girl!)

A few days later we celebrated my birthday with our Houston friends at Corner Table. Travis was flying back to Saudi the next day so it also served as a farewell meal for him.

Being on my own with the girls for the next couple weeks in Houston meant we didn't get out quite as much as I wanted to, but we did get in all of our doctors visits and several playdates. My mom flew down to help me drive back to KS at the end of June.

We spent a few more weeks in KS, and the highlight was taking the girls to the Konza Prairie and our friends farm.

pictures

Then on July 23rd, exactly one year after first embarking on our Saudi adventure, I boarded a plane to go back! But this time I was alone with two kids.

(*this is where the post ended the first time. I would love to know what my thoughts were immediately following that flight, but I'm guessing I was so exhausted I was too tired to remember it! Looking back the only memories I have of this are walking about two miles through the Doha airport hauling kids and stuff. And that was the LAST time I hauled a carseat through the airport!)