May Day

I am a sucker for community events. Back in Michigan, Richland was amazing at putting on excellent kid and family friendly activites. Fourth Of July is just spectacular there with a parade, cookout, and fireworks. Wassailing was one of my favorite days of the year, where on a cold December day you could drink wassail and go frolicking around to all the local business and get some soup, cookies, and general jovial Christmas cheer. Needless to say, the new town we picked had some big shoes to fill.

Today was May Day, and our new little community didn't disappoint. To kick off the opening of a new park and start a series they have called "First Saturdays," the whole town was open to celebrate May Day. Downtown all the businesses were open and there was a farmers market in the newly refurbished park in the center of town. At the library, the girls made may day baskets to collect the flowers that each business was passing out. Once you reached the end of town at the florist shop, you handed over all your flowers to be created into a flower crown! I mean seriously. Is there any better type of crown? They also had a may pole dance put on by the high school cheerleaders. Partway through, they offered up the opportunity for any of the littles in the crowd to come join in. Bethy was game, and I about melted watching her hold her little ribbon.

Events like these fill a place in my heart in like nothing else. And to top all the wonderfulness of the day, it was a perfectly sunny 70 degrees out. The boys are out backpacking this weekend, so it's just me and the girls (well, and Ben). They can go climb mountains while we girls go get flowers in our hair.

May Day flower baskets

Bethy collecting dandelions for her basket

The view from the park overlooking the wildlife refuge

Ben

They are totally stoked, right?

Pure magic right here!

Clara watching her crown being put together

The finished product!

I think this is what heaven looks like. 

The Evergreen State

Phew. We made it. It was a bit iffy at different points along our journey here if we were going to or not...but I can confidently say now that we did.

And it's been good.

The good is showing up in little ways and big ways, and leading me to the conclusion that for whatever reason, this is where God wants us right now. And I am very thankful for that.

We've packed a lot in since we have arrived just about a month ago- celebrating Easter, both sets of parents visiting, many park excursions, library story times, train rides into Vancouver and Portland, expeditions into the city, two (!) date nights, a hike to Multnomah Falls. More importantly than all that, is we have had a our fill of family time, each night, during the week. This is something that had been missing from our life in Michigan (in a general sense) and I am glad to have found it here. Now that life has started to settle down a bit, hopefully the more peaceful pace and schedule that is now my life will lend itself to more writing on here.

In parting, some pictures from our first weekend as a family here, hiking up to the top of Multnomah Falls.

Googolplex

In case you didn't know,

1. A googolplex is the number 10^googol, or equivalently, 10⁽¹⁰¹⁰⁰). Written out in ordinary decimal notation, it is 1 followed by 10¹⁰⁰ zeroes.

and that is about how many changes I feel have occurred in my life in the past three months. To go through and discuss each one in detail and how it affects my family and me could challenge the length of War and Peace, so I won't. I will, however, give a brief update.

We are moving! To Washington State. Vancouver, Washington.

Just in case you needed clarification. Dave got a new job out there, and we are pretty excited for the move. But sad to leave our home here. But pumped to explore new trails out there. But nostalgic for the places we've discovered here. As you can see, it's a giant mixed bag of emotions. I would say, that the overwhelming feeling of the bag though is positive, and this is a path that we clearly feel God taking us down, which is tremendously comforting. He started this new job in December, and since then, life has been a whirlwind. We've had the holidays, packing, putting our house up on the market, saying goodbye to people, and the general goings on of a family of six. 

Last weekend Dave and I (and Ben) flew out to WA to scout out the place. We checked out schools, looked at houses, and just drove around to get a lay of the land. It is so beautiful there. I'll be honest, there is a part of me that is super excited to be back on the West Coast. At the same time, there is a part of me that is sad to leave the Midwest, which in it's own way, grew on this Californian girl and became home. I'm pretty much a basket full of polar opposites at any given moment. 

That's about it! Dave takes the computer with him when he works, and I don't like typing on the iPad, so that means a lot less blogging opportunities for me. Hopefully, when we are all moved and settled out there, I'll be a good little blogger again!