Family

Blessed. I am so very over the top thankful for time with my family. It is ridiculously hard living so far away from my family and friends. The problem is I am now also falling in love with the area that I am living and the people who I get to call colleagues and the people I get to serve alongside. Life is going over the top well here, seriously. I am loving my call, I get to teach swimming lessons, I sell some hats a couple local coffee shops, and in my spare time I get to co-direct a camp. It is a dream come true, not to mention there are more lakes in this area than I can even begin to count (coming from SD anything over about two lakes is a big deal) and the state parks are amazing. I love it up north. I am even slowly but surely learning to tolerate the trees, I wouldn't say that I have fallen in love with them by any means but I think I have moved past hating them to just strongly disliking them.

The con of living up north is my family is six hours away, this is not do-able for a day trip. This isn't do-able to make it home when a friend is having a craptastic day. This isn't do-able for a trip to just eat lunch with my grandparents. However it does make my time with my family more sacred. It makes the time we spend together more wonderful. I do dream of moving closer to them someday. I dream of living close enough to my family that I can make a day trip to visit them. I do dream of being close enough to my dear friends that we can meet up for an evening without having to take massive amounts of vacation to do it.

I just had the chance to spend several days with: mom, dad, brother, brother's girlfriend (we like her), my fiance, Dakota, and Nala (brother's high maintenance puppy). It was glorious. We didn't do anything amazing per-say but everything we did was fabulous. We played card and board games. We sat around and told stories, we exchanged gifts (I LOVE LOVE LOVE giving gifts), we took pictures, we ate, we ate some more, we slept, we watched a movie, and we spent time sitting with one another. It was a glorious few days. While I was sad to see brother and his girlfriend leave for California, I know we also have to learn to share with her family too.

I am jazzed to have a few more days with my parents in town, time to massively work on some wedding stuff and time for dad to spoil my sweet puppy. Time to make some more memories.

I am blessed.
I am loved.
I am thankful.

Evening Run

    Most eveings my fiance and I take Dakota (my sweet one year old golden retriever) for a walk. Last night as we were getting ready to head out on our walk we both happen to put on our running shoes to walk in (this is probably more rare than you anticipate, generally I am in flip flops, Marc is always in shoes). As we were starting out leaving my house, Marc began to jog, I think as a joke at first and I joined in. It was marvelous - the evening was cool - we both love a crisp night for a run and so we began to run together. It was fun to go out for an unexpected evening run. It wasn't record setting paces and we talked the whole time. Dakota thought she had died and gone to heaven, a second run in a day.
    Last night's run was liberating to a certain degree, I get caught up in what time I need/want to hit, and how many miles I need/want to run. I get caught up in the details of the run. I forget what first made me fall in love with running, the simple joy of being outside running, not the time or the distance, rather the love for running.
   We ran a good forty minutes or so (without the watch we sort of had to guess what time we left and we think we ran about forty minutes). I had a drawstring bag on my back (I was carrying my keys, cellphone, and bags to pick up after Dakota) - it was a little awkward and I would never choose to run with it - however last night in the midst of the improptu run it hardly phased me. I ran without an ipod (also a bit of a rare occurrance).
    I am thankful for last nights run for several reasons:

• it reminded me that a run doesn't always have to be about time or distance
• I love running short distances with Marc (he doesn't quite have the endurance or desire to go much further)
• the cool crisp air was a welcome guest after a hot and muggy summer
• I had an exhausted dog on my hands when we got home
• I enjoy running just to run