homecoming

i will spare the gory details til we have a real conversation, but let's just say that we were 4 1/2 hours early at the airport and just barely made our flight. the trip was anything but smooth or anticlimactic, but all obsticles were overcome (thank you for your prayers!!!) and we are home!! all SICK, and pooped, but HOME!! and we came home to signs (literally!) of how much we are loved. you may not be able to tell, but Sarah even drew on all the stars! holy crap! :) there was an "i missed you card", a welcome home card, a bottle of wine, some brownies with nuts for curtis, donughts (which we ate for breakfast, along with the milk John & Jaya tucked into our fridge), and andrew, God love him, brought me a "take along" pack of wine in the car with him to pick up Kyra and I from the airport ... it even had a bendy straw! this is why nc is home - it goes so much deeper than the weather! :) but it's a nice perk.

i am pooped gang. and i have to get groceries and unpack the kiddos yet. so i'm off - but i'll talk to you all later. thanks for all the love - big love right back at ya! xoxo rae

last hurrah

this is our last day here - we leave tomorrow morning. here are a few pictures of our last "hurrah"...

it's been a good trip - the time has actually flown by - but i am ready to go home. to be in my own space at my own pace, you know? and, in the last 3 or 4 days, everyone has gotten pretty sick (i place myself at the top of that list) and we are all weary. home, james!

the truth about nostalgia

so, you may have read that my dad is all misty & nostalgic for the prairies of my youth. and it's true - the sights & smells of my childhood are happy and i have loved experiencing them on this trip. but they are not what i live for anymore...they are the ghosts of my past, not my present, or even my future. my heart lives in the smell of wild honeysuckle and butterfly bushes, in the sight of the crepe myrtle trees blooming hot pink & heavy, the feeling of the humid warm air on my skin in the late evening while bats swoop past the streetlights and fireflies bob in the lawn. i love the memories i have of my childhood...but i am a grown up now, and have put childish things behind me. :) so as much as i love the thick smell of canola in the summer air, give me the fragrant trees of north carolina any day.

the canola i love...

peeps

there are just some people you always have room in your heart for... these are some of my peeps - annelie, bonny, rienna, karen, me & kristine - who got together last night. even though we don't see each other often, we shared our lives so closely for so long that it's like walking back into a room you just left to be with them. they are fantastic women, and i am lucky to count them as my friends!

this is curtis & jeff... they've been together longer than curtis & I have! :) they were roommates at school, went to jazz school together after curtis & i were married, were the best men at each other's wedding... i don't know of two men who are closer friends. curtis loves him even though he is "an uber-talented, i-can-do-anything-better-than-anyone, friend" :) they are so cute to watch together, and i like to say that on the rare occasions that they get to see each other, jeff gets dibs on curtis!

jeez my mom is demanding!

ok - ok! i've been slack blogging, but i've been a busy beaver! i have actually WORKED - like at a JOB - for the last 4 days! phew! been at the salon, play...i mean... working with my friends. :)

but i will leave you with this -

driving home tonight from a rehersal, the air was redolent with the smell of fresh cut hay - so much so you could almost taste it. it's one of the happy smells of my childhood... and the canola is yellow. there are miles upon miles of fields of yellow canola, and i love it so much. i will try to take a picture... some people think it smells yucky, but again, a happy smell of my childhood.

good night!

to tired to type, but...

the royal tyrell museum - one of the most famous & extensive dinosaur museums in the world, and it's a mere 3.5 hours away. and since you can't read the little sign, meg is touching an actual, real mastadon tusk...