Settling In

. What a wonderful Fourth of July Weekend it has been- relaxing, warm, and lots of time just being around the house playing with our new dog. These pictures are for you Ingrid! Thank you so much for giving us such a sweet boy who is so gentle and calm. Roscoe is settling in great. He's been on a run or to the park every day and catching lots of cuddles, naps, and loves at home.

I know it is officially summer when I can sit down and devour a book in a weekend. While at times exasperating my children ("Moooommmmyyyyy, why do you have to keep looking a that book with no pictures??"), I have unashamedly been lost heart and mind in Susan Rebecca White's book, BOUND SOUTH. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a fun,easy, summer read with very believable characters. It is written by a girl I went to Westminster (my high school) with many years ago. Sitting on my front porch, so far away from Atlanta, I felt like I was transported back to my youth, to the city that shaped me, to characters that I almost could have named by their real names. Even one of the main characters is named "Caroline," and, while she and I are different in significant ways, we share so many similar experiences. Reading the book was like sitting down with an old friend that knew me intimately. I realized, as I read it, how accustomed I've become to no one knowing the Caroline that came out of Atlanta. Even in Chattanooga- only an hour and a half north of Atlanta- my life as a pastor's wife living in Brainerd was a far distance from the experiences I knew in Atlanta, going to Westminster, attending friends' debutante parties, eating the very buttered saltines at the Driving Club that White mentions in her book. Now I am far away from all that not only in experience, but in time and geography. I, like the characters in this book, once fled Atlanta and all about it that I felt I didn't measure up to. And yet, in the distance, there is a nostalgia for it as I walk through a novel whose characters and setting are so similar to the life I knew twenty years ago. It is strange to look at my little messy haired, bow free girls and realize the life they will live may be quite different from mine. They may one day long for a damp Oregon evening in the same way that I get nostalgic remembering the sweet smell of honeysuckle on a humid summer evening. But even in the nostalgia, I'm so glad for the journey my life has taken, for my precious husband, for the different experiences that my children are having, and for the wonderfully rich life we are leading together in this amazing city called Portland which is starting to feel very much like our home. My only wish- that family was closer! All of you guys!