Four Years

A good night of rest didn't do much for my melancholy.  I'm realizing it's just one of those things you deal with when you are making big changes, leaving behind an era of your life, a place you have called home, people you love.  There's just no way around it.  I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but I feel like I can say this because I have been through the experience. To me, leaving our would-be life in California behind feels like having a miscarriage.  When we first moved here, we had so many hopes and dreamy plans for what we could only assume would be our permanent life here.  Now that we've made this decision to move, that life is over, and I guess I'm not totally done mourning the loss.

I don't consider myself a terribly sentimental person (who am I kidding?), but as I look back over four years of pictures, it's pretty amazing what has taken place here. Four years of family gatherings, four years of birthdays and changes in our children (including the addition of our fourth), four years of school and friends, four years of exploring this beautiful state and making many wonderful memories.  California will always be the place where Brandon first started practicing urology and worked with his Dad. It will always be the place where I had my last child and was introduced to The Power of Moms.  California will always be the place where Kate morphed from girl to young woman, where Will got baptized and learned to ride a bike, where Elizabeth started school school and learned to swim, and where Rachael was born - even though she'll never remember anything about this place, just like Elizabeth doesn't remember Iowa.  

Here's a random sampler, and since I literally have thousands more, I stopped trying to get a good balance after awhile and gave up.  You just can't capture four years of family life in a blog post.

Sunset on California . . .