In which I ruminate on home

2012, for us, has been a remarkable year.

• The girls and I spent the first quarter of it without Larry.
• Once our house was ready to be listed, we all, as a family, finally made the trek to North Dakota. But the move wasn't the simple, exciting relocation one might think of when taking a job in another state with a company that pays you to move there. No, we left behind our home, with guarded hopes it would sell within a reasonable amount of time.
• To this date, it has not. In fact, it wasn't even showing. So the price was dropped, and dropped again, and again...
• Unless we plan on making one of them income properties, we're not the sort of folks to buy a second home while we're paying the mortgage and utilities on the first. So, we've taken to apartment life.
• Larry was fortunate to find the one bedroom bachelor pad upon his arrival in North Dakota in December 2011. Apartments aren't too easy to come by out here right now.
• Then a much larger, two-bedroomer became available, and we were quick to snatch up that puppy. It's been wonderful and not so wonderful. But mostly, we are blessed to be here.
• In the fall, we were blessed with a pregnancy both anticipated and surprising. But our precious little one made it into the arms of my Jesus before ours. He granted us the privilege of being able to hold and bury our baby in a place we love, and during it all, He reminded me constantly of His promises, and His unimaginable capacity to heal.
• Then we went home. Two weeks back in our very expensive, properly coined "vacation home." Two weeks of complete relaxation and very few commitments. Two weeks of healing.

We got into Cedarville two days before Christmas, so we had to hurry to Menards to find whatever leftover trees they had. It took some convincing, but Natalie finally accepted the little evergreen in the above picture at the wonderful clearance price of $4 as our tree for 2012. We loaded that poor little thing until its branches could hold no more ornaments and topped it with a dress-up princess crown. I think it is my favorite tree yet.

Then we hatted and gloved and booted and scarved and made our way into *our own yard.* Understand you, we haven't had our own yard for months. It was incredibly freeing to be back. We followed deer prints,

had a bonfire in the snow, built a snow princess

and a snow man,

 

 

and made a few snow angels here and there. Curious to see what a snow angel looks like when she does the splits up to her halo? Thanks to Natalie, I now know:

 

 

I'll say it again, it was good to be home.