Away...

Nathan and I just got back from a week away in Manitoba.  Nathan was taking a class at CMU last week, so I went along and caught up with friends in our old town.  It was alot of fun to see so many familiar faces and to hear how people have been over the past year since we moved...but it was also tiring!  We stayed with some wonderful friends and their three kids (who have grown up SO much in the last 12 months).  It was nice to stay in an area where I knew people so I didn't just have to sit around a hotel room bored every day.  Thanks D&M for opening your home to us!  You really have become like family to us over the past few years!

A common question that we were asked by people in A-town was, "How does it feel to be back?"  I always had such a hard time answering that question!  Of course it was wonderful to be back and to see so many good friends again, and to be in a familiar place again was oh so nice.  In many ways it felt like we'd never left.  On the other hand, it was a bit hard to figure out what our place was there (or if we even had a place there anymore).  The larger question that came out of our trip for me was "Where is home these days?"  Manitoba is not home anymore.  And California isn't home anymore either.  We have our "stuff" in Saskatchewan, but even that isn't quite home yet.  I joked with Nathan that we had almost as much stuff in our car on the drive back from MB as we had unpacked in our room here at his parents', therefore making our car a close contender.  We joke, but the car is one place where Nathan and I have actually been able to spend a few uninterrupted hours (or days) together without being a "guest" in someone's home.  We very much appreciate the people and places where we have been over the last 3 weeks since coming back to Canada, but I must say...it will be nice to be in a place of our own again!  Three weeks (and another few weeks to come yet) is a long time to be in the middle of a transition like this!

Let's see...what else?  Well, this morning Lennox got sprayed by a skunk.  Thankfully he wasn't right next to the skunk as it sprayed, but to be in any proximity to a spraying skunk is too close and this afternoon he got both a peroxide bath and a tomato juice bath.  I don't know if I've ever heard him whimper so mournfully/painfully as when he was being rinsed off with the hose.  Makes me wonder how I'm going to handle seeing my children in pain when there's nothing I can do to help them...

Well, I think I'm going to take off and do a bit of cleaning.  What is it about traveling that just makes your surroundings into complete chaos?!  Ugh.  And I am so tired!  I just want to sleep instead...we'll see which side wins today...it is Sunday, after all, so perhaps a nap it will be! : )