One Year Later...

I am well aware that it has been several months since I last posted. I did decide to make a post this weekend in honor of our one year anniversary back Stateside. It was one year yesterday that we arrived back in the States, and I can still remember Dalton wandering around and saying repeatedly, "It feels like I'm in a dream." And it did - it was truly odd to walk around the places that I remembered and knew so well, and see them anew after spending the larger part of two years abroad. I've found that life isn't what I thought it would be (I guess it really never is), and feel like enough time has passed that I can make a reasonable look back and give a better overall assessment than I could have before.

I think there were several lessons that I thought I had learned before we left that clearly had not stuck well enough. I thought I had figured out that your problems follow you no matter where you go, but somehow, I managed to still be surprised when we had problems here. They may not have been the same problems, but there were problems nonetheless. Perhaps it's just the old human nature to look at other people and places and to think the grass is greener. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to be back - there are definitely things that I appreciate here in a deeper and different way than I did before. That being said, there is also a newfound appreciation for the English as well, and having been a part of another culture for a brief time, there are things that I think they do better than we. I've been told that once you're exposed to another culture for an extended period of time that we cease to be part of our original culture, but at the same time, don't fully adopt the second culture, and become almost a third culture to yourself, adopting and appreciating the good and the differences of both. My experience leads me to believe that this is true.

Atlhough I would have told you a year ago that England had changed me inalterably, and that England had somehow, against my begrudges, won over a small portion of my heart, I have probably been the most surprised by how much of my heart England seems to have invaded. Again, don't misunderstand - I truly do appreciate our warmer weather here in the South, sunny, sandy beaches where you actually go swimming, large yards, and the many, many other joys of being "home". But I miss cream teas, the beautiful English countryside, the real sense of history, the at times overwhelming sensation of being so close and so familiar with such amazing buildings and places, their abundance of spring flowers, and the list goes on. We'd love to go back and visit, but times being what they are....

Overall, our lives have progressed with little change from our last post. Maggie and Dalton continue to go to school and do the things typical for kids their age. Maggie is still performing ballet, and was in the Birmingham Ballet performance of Peter Pan. Dalton played soccer again this past summer/fall, and joined Scouts shortly after we returned. My life is far less interesting, as it has been absolutely consumed by work over the past several months, thanks to the annual occurrence of the accountant's "busy season". Michelle has been scrapping, and takes care of the kids (and me). Maggie did turn eight earlier this month, which is still absolutely amazing to me, and she went to Atlanta and got an "American Girl" doll as part of her birthday present.

That's all for now. I am thinking that once I get some of my life back, I will return to blogging more regularly, but no promises...