Holidays...

My husband and I have always lived in a place where when we have any time off, we have family we like to travel to visit. So summers, Christmases, March Breaks, Easters and many weekends have often been spent on the road, visiting with family. This year must be the year that we have stayed put the most! This summer we went a bit stir crazy at first... we were accustomed to heading to camp where my husband directed the boys camp for a couple of weeks as soon as school was out... but instead he had to cancel his speaking engagement at the camp for the staff training as we awaited the late arrival of our newest baby girl... it was odd to still be home once school was out, but obviously necessary! We did make it to the cottage and visited here and there, but spent much of the summer at home getting to know our new babe. Then Thanksgiving, we had our baby girl dedicated at church... so we stayed home again and had family and friends over. Christmas had us stay put again... very strange for us. Then this March Break we welcomed a friend and her three beautiful children into our home and enjoyed many outings and the amazing summer-like weather outdoors. Again, another holiday at home.

Don't get me wrong, we have stolen weekends away to visit family over the past year, but when the long stretches come, we've been staying put. It's been awesome to really settle into our home, being around for our kids to play with their neighbourhood friends when they're off school... just more relaxing and less rushing around, more discovering what our town and area has to offer and the kids really having a blast playing and using their imaginations. I must admit that I am looking forward to being on the road more this summer with the girls while my husband is in school to spend some quality time with my family and to get to the cottage, but I think it's been ironically stretching us out of our comfort zones to stay at home. Sounds crazy doesn't it!? But we've always been so antsy to hit the road when we have any length of time off, that it's been new for us and awesome to be content where we are, to not feel like we have to spend every break on the road... catching up on rest and quality play time with each other instead of running all the time. We've also been connecting with some amazing friends and neighbours more by not being on the road so much. As stir crazy as we thought we'd be at the start of last summer... I've come to welcome breaks at home... but no worries, we haven't given up on our visiting as we very much enjoy those times too ;)