Amundsons

First day of school for the Amundson girls.   Our flight didn't leave until 6pm from Boston, so First Hour was history class.  The History textbook didn't make "the cut" (see previous post), so instead, we hit the Freedom Trail to learn about the American Revolution.  We went up the bell tower of the Old North Church.  Turns out they are coming by sea, which is lucky cause Claire had two lanterns. . Listen up, my children, and you shall hear  Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.  My little suffragettes at Faneuil Hall- hearing about Lucy Stone. This is a moment before I mentioned to Claire that she is standing in front of the graves of the Boston Massacre. So we are on our way!  The adventure begins...

How do you pack for a year?  Particularly if you will be hiking through rural Spain, sightseeing Paris,  and swimming on a tropical island in the Caribbean- with 2 kids that need to be homeschooled.  When I would get dramatic about this question my mom would say, "well, it's not like you are putting your family on a boat".  Except that we are on a boat for 17 days across the Atlantic. But now packING has turned into packED.  I'm quite sure we made many upcoming regretful choices, but we chose to be nimble rather than comfortable.  This is a pretty nerve-racking place to be. Mostly because I like being comfortable, as in squishy cozy comfortable.  But you don't get to adventure unless you walk out of that comfort zone. Whenever we would bring up how we could ship, store or drag Rubbermaid tubs along with us both Jake and I got exhausted, confused, and overwhelmed.  We did the money-math and the stress-math and taking stuff to store stuff so that we could have stuff

I'm going to miss my bank teller at Midland, my cashier at Wayne's, my pharmacist at Watsons, and don't even get me started about my hairstylist, cause my ends will split just thinking about it.  Greenville is like no other town, I won't even argue with you, cause hands down it wins all-the-towns.   We love Apple Days in the fall, Daniken Christmas trees in the winter, the flowers at Patriots park in the spring, and Marcoot's Ice Cream in the summers.   As we venture out into the world, one thing is clear to all four of us- we are gonna miss our home.   And as much as I am going to miss the guy that changes my oil at Rex's, it doesn't even come close to our friends, our church, the tribe of people that we call ours.  Many joined us at the city pool on our last night in Greenville.  Some of our friends we have known since college, and others we have gotten to know more recently through our kids.  These people own the words kind and generous.  As we leave to

Firing up this old blog again.   It has been a while (2013!)  as life got busy, too busy.  Too much happening, too much going on, and the blog became the last thing on my list somewhere below ironing Jake's shirts.  Plus blogging had seemed to go the way of frosted jeans, the trend was real- until it wasn't.  And those who know me, know I'm a slave to trends particularly when they mean less writing.  A quick Facebook update is just a lot more appealing than a writing task.  But something has happened... 4 passports. Four passports and a year long sabbatical.  We are heading out of our sweet town that we love, leaving our community, home, church, friends, and jobs to go on a pilgrimage.  Spain in the fall and the  Dominican Republic in the spring with lots of side routes and stops along the way.  The four of us and our four backpacks will see some things, and I want to document our journey- an old school blog just seems like the best way to do that.  This means someti