There is some sense of peace I find driving through the countryside, the farms, the overall space. It feels real and natural and I find it to be extremely beautiful. We came across a few industrial plants where their pollutants clearly spewed into the sky and those fumes acted like another big white puffy cloud and it made us really think about where all of the things we consume come from. It made us realize that we were definitely more drawn to the space and realness of it all and wanted to continue this apparent never ending journey of trying to become more educated and then do something positive with that information.
The next afternoon we left for Omaha to spend the next 24 hours at my cousin’s wedding. This is a cousin from my dad’s side of the family and to give you a quick run down my dad is one of ten children and each of those kids has at least two kids. And then most of those kids has a kid or two too… basically a good estimate would be this; I have 18 aunts and uncles, about 50 cousins and 23 second cousins just on my dad’s side of the family.
As you can guess with this amount of people plus a bunch of other people we’ve never met that leaves little time to talk with anyone for more then a few minutes. You never have a chance to greet everyone, and the people you do talk to you get the amount of time it takes to ‘catch up’ since the last time you saw them. “Are you still working there?”… “Where are you living at now?”… “How’s married life?”… And occasionally you get a chance to ask something to find out new and interesting information… “Where have you traveled recently?”…”When are you due?” (addressed of course to the three cousin’s that happen to be pregnant at the same time). It is of course good to see everyone and happy that they are doing well, however it always feels so rushed and has little chance to get real that it is usually a whirlwind of greetings and hugging goodbye saying “Sorry we didn’t get a chance to talk more…”
It also makes for a good time for our immediate family to hang out. We drove up with my brother and his girlfriend. And then we drove home with my sister and her family. My nephew Kestan just started saying the L in Lindsay and has for the past 2 ½ years referred to me as ‘sinny’. Last Saturday when I babysat him we spent a few minutes working on the L in Lindsay and he became so dramatic with it, it just made me laugh and we moved on to something more fun. Yesterday at the hotel he all of a sudden said “Lindsay, look!” And he wanted me to watch as his mom helped him put his shoes on. We praised him for saying Lindsay and I high fived him as we both said “booya!” It was just a few minutes later that he started to refer to me as “Linds” and it just melted my heart. That kid is too cute. He is at the hilarious, crazy, awesome age of learning great things every single day but still being a toddler and overall just a joy to be around.
I do not sleep well at hotels. It usually takes me a while to fall asleep in general so double that issue by 2 when it comes to hotels. I am also a self proclaimed semi-germaphobe so you can imagine where my minds goes the second I step in to any hotel room, I refuse to step foot on the bathroom floor until there are towels spread about. However, I love not having a schedule, and as much as I love our dogs and our home, it is great to have a break and be in a place where I have nothing to clean, no dishes or laundry to do, and we can just be.
Lastly, this weekend with tons of family, sharing car rides, sharing a room with the duh’s! (yes we are trying to save some moola, and sharing a room turned out to be not so bad at all) it just reaffirmed how sweet and kind and totally hilarious my husband is. I am very lucky and blessed and at the end of the day I am thrilled to be home with our dogs relaxing for a few hours before another busy week rolls on. Peace.
