I grew up as patriotic as the next kid. I said the pledge of allegiance, I got goose-bumps while Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America” blared through speakers during a firework show, and I earnestly and genuinely poured my heart into “America the Beautiful” every year at church on the Sunday before July 4th.  I still do.  I really DID love America and I really DID believe it was the best country in the world. 

I became slightly disillusioned while living in London and feeling like the U.K. is also a pretty great country, and many of the countries we visited in Europe seemed also marvelous and wonderful. I even began to think that in their long histories they had sorted out a few things America was still grappling with.  

Then, in one day, last week, it felt as if all the love for ‘Merica that I still had in my heart unraveled. 

Now before you start to tell me all that is great about the chosen land, put your hearts at ease because I believe there is a lot of greatness in my country.  But this post is not about that, this post is about how I saw America as a land that is not only made up of flawed people, but is in itself flawed in systemic and structural ways.  And of course it’s going to make people uncomfortable for me to say this, watching any kind of admired, even worshipped, person or thing fall from its pedestal is deeply painful.  Nonetheless, if I’m going to reconcile my own messy, inadequate life with the ideals I’ve been fed all my life, I also need to reconcile my messy and inadequate country with the ideals I’ve been fed all my life. 
 
Thursday morning I got an email from a friend of mine, who was born and raised in Europe but has lived in the United States.  She shared with me her despair while living in San Francisco and trying to make sense of the dramatic and indisputable wealth gap she observed daily.  She felt confused and heartbroken at the epidemic of homelessness in contrast with fancy hotels she visited for conferences related to her business.  She said to me,  
“I mean…I can’t comprehend why rich people wouldn’t want to pay more taxes and welfare contributions and be just a little less rich, if nothing else just so that they wouldn’t have to step over sleeping/dying homeless people (some with kids) on their way home from a fancy job at Google with their $20 poke bowl dinner in their hand.”
 
Thursday afternoon, while eating my lunch I skimmed news headlines and came across an article written as a frustrated follow-up to a story President Trump told in his State of the Union speech.  The story was a warm and fuzzy feel good anecdote about a police officer adopting the infant of a drug-addicted mother.  From the article I read, by Christina Cauterucci:
“The story Trump told ought to illustrate the threadbare state of America’s social safety net, the cruelty of an unimaginably wealthy nation that lets pregnant women sleep on the street.”
Doesn’t the story really just “illustrate our need for a humane drug policy, better addiction treatment, more affordable housing, or better access to contraception and maternal health care”?
 
Thursday evening Richard and I attended a speaking event at Riverside church in Manhattan.  This month marks 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech at Riverside Church, and to celebrate, the church is hosting events to commemorate his work.  Less than two weeks before, we as a nation collectively celebrated the life and work of Doctor King.   And yet during this event, I listened to a young black teacher, one of America’s finest, describe being dragged by his ankles out of a police station after being arrested at a protest in Ferguson.  He was doing the same thing Martin Luther King Jr did fifty years ago, for the same cause, a more equitable and just system in America. 

Thursday night on our way home from the event, as Richard and I made a subway transfer we walked through the underground tunnels of NYC and passed a disabled boy (he couldn’t have been more than 20 years old) making music for money.  He had limb differences, and sat on a plastic milk crate, with two prosthetics beneath his knees and was missing both hands.  Where I would usually feel profound sadness, I instead felt a hot anger and spitefully lamented to Richard
“Seriously America? This is the best we can do for this kid?”
 
I’m too hurt and disappointed to offer disclaimers describing what I love about this nation. I reserve the right to simultaneously love and criticize my country.  We can do better.  We have to do better.
 

I have a story that is just begging to be told, and I can’t think of how to tell it without it seeming like a shameless brag, but it demonstrates so perfectly a dynamic in mine and Richard’s relationship that I have to document it.  So here I am writing the story on this rusty old blog, and if you’ve stopped by and happen to read it, forgive the shameless brag. 

Last fall, when I was at a particularly low point, Richard and I were discussing options for improving my general state of being.  I knew one thing for sure I needed, but that’s a story for another day, and I knew one thing for sure I wanted.  I wanted a housekeeper.  I was overwhelmed by the task of housework for seven people but felt like a domestic failure if I couldn’t, as a stay-at-home mom, maintain a tidy home of my own accord.  I felt like only people who were wealthy and out of touch hired housekeepers.  But gradually I came around to the idea, I knew that NYC is full of hard-working people who might not be otherwise qualified for employment.  So we worked it into our budget, I texted my neighbor, who had previously recommended her housekeeper and asked for the contact info.   For the sake of her privacy, I’ll call her Sonam.  As part of my justification I framed the whole “housekeeper” concept to myself and my children like this: She is a woman who comes to our house twice a month, for four hours and helps me clean the house.  This is true, we work together, and we clean the house all morning long.  She’s terrific, she works hard, we listen to her Tibetan music, and when it’s done I feel restored. 

Sonam has another job at a hotel doing housekeeping but for the last three weeks she hasn’t been put on the schedule.  A few days ago she texted me asking if I could pay her more money because she wasn’t getting any income from her hotel job.  I was completely conflicted.  She has only been coming for a few months and even though I really like her, I wondered if I could trust her.  Also, the amount I was paying her was already a bit of a stretch for our budget and I didn’t know if we were willing to sacrifice elsewhere to accommodate her request.  But ultimately my gut told me that we had the money she needed and I really wanted to give it to her.  

When I approached Richard about it I walked him through my thought process, and I’m sure he knew that my bleeding heart could not turn her down.  He proceeded with caution, but he told me that we had agreed on a wage, it was what we felt we could pay, and then some nonsense about free markets.  I argued that she was desperate and free markets are never really good for the poor.  Then he did the Richard thing- and he came up with a Richard solution. 

I think Richard thinks that that I’m the generous one, the one who can’t say “no”, the one donating and suffering and moaning about the injustices of the world. But Richard is generous too.  Richard is generous when he can be deliberate about it, when he can account for it, when he can be pragmatic and conscientious.  And because he is and does all those things consistently and reliably, he is generous often.  

Richard pointed out that paying Sonam $20 more, twice a month wouldn’t amount to much for her.  But if we could help her another way, if we could help her find another cleaning job, THEN we would be giving her a material financial increase.  (Accountant speak for more better money.)  So Richard marketed for Sonam, on our neighborhood Facebook page.  I’m sure he did it professionally and skillfully, because he got a big response.  This morning when she came to help me clean, Sonam informed me that she had scheduled four new homes for cleaning in the next week.  

Before the success of Richard’s maneuvers payed off, I texted Sonam and told her that I wasn’t willing to pay her more right now.  I appreciated her hard work, I would recommend her to anyone, and I hoped we could continue to work together and after she had been working for a longer period of time we could consider a raise.  She handled it graciously and I told her that my husband and I would do what we could to help her.  When Richard’s plan worked out, she was thrilled and grateful.  

Maybe I pat myself on the back for being such an atruist, for wanting, REALLY WANTING, to give all the things to all the people.  But out in the world are movers and shakers, making things happen by using their own talents and skills and working within their own limits and abilities.  Here is my pat on the back to those kind of people, who aren’t suckers like I am.   It would be such a big ask to demand Richard give a raise when he didn’t believe it was justified, I’ve guilted him about such things SO many times.  But we each serve in our capacity and I’m so grateful for Richard’s common sense and methodical approach to life, and service, that both balances and challenges my own impulsive and reckless openhandedness.  

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.  And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
1 Corinthians 12: 4-6

Recently I read an article in the New York Times about people like myself, wanting recognition for our newfound social awareness.  It’s silly, and I hesitate to write about racism because I’m so unqualified.  But then I think about all of us in our echo-chambers and I think of my days largely sheltered from confronting these issues and I see how friends I trusted and admired helped me gain my newfound social awareness.  Maybe if we’re not willing to listen to people who are different from us, we could be willing to listen to people who are like us. I’ve learned things I can’t unlearn, I’ve seen things that I can’t un-see and maybe my experiences can matter to you. I understand that we are all only capable of forming our opinions based on the information and experiences we are given. I’m not quite sure how far my experiences can go in forming someone else’s opinion, but I believe in being authentic. While I don’t consider myself a millennial, I guess I identify with the generation enough to be willing to wear my social views on my sleeve.  I’ve narrowed my thoughts on race issues in America down to two main points. 

First- it requires a certain degree of humility to acknowledge our own prejudices.  Instead of being dismissive and defensive about what is in our heart, we can be more honest and self-aware about our feelings and fears. At first we don’t need to be judgmental of our own prejudices, we can begin by just discovering them.

When I was 14 my family was living in Fairfax, Virginia while my dad spent one year working in Washington D.C.  One Saturday afternoon my dad and I took the Metro out to visit a friend of his in Maryland.  I was really excited because we lived at the end of the orange line, near the Vienna station and we were going to ride the train the entire length of the line, across the city and into the Maryland New Carrollton station.  Riding the entire length of a Metro line was a bucket-list item of sorts for me.  When we arrived at New Carrollton we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few things to take to dinner.  While wandering the aisles it didn’t take me long to realize that my dad and I were the only white people in the store.  I felt my insides shrink a little bit, partly from the strange loneliness of feeling like an outsider, but also because of fear.  I was afraid because I was surrounded by black people.  I did not see myself as a racist, I was not raised by racist parents, but my 14 year old brain assumed that black people are inherently more violent because they are black. I didn’t think this on a conscious level, and logically I could talk myself out of it. Of course I was safe. But I was the product of a society that had in a thousand subtle and not so subtle ways conditioned me.  I don’t blame myself for the feelings that came to me, they were unintentional and unwelcome, but they came all the same. 

Now, as an adult, I can consciously acknowledge them.  I can be honest about their existence and in doing so I can begin to consider how to handle those feelings, and ponder why they came and what can be done about it.  Maybe it’s not fair to call my 14 year old self racist, maybe that word isn’t productive to the greater dialogue.  But there is no question that I had prejudices. 

Second – racism isn’t just about what is in our individual hearts.  I recently read a news article where a young woman defended herself against racism by saying that she had occasionally dated men of another race.  People frequently defend themselves against racism by saying they have friends or co-workers who are black.  But racism isn’t just about not hating black people, it is about making a deliberate effort to make sure they are given the same opportunities, even if doing so requires more effort. Racism is about the way we vote, the policies we enact and the laws we create that directly affect the lives of black people. 

There are still major gaps between black and white income, crime rates and education. What accounts for these major gaps? I’ve heard the implication that black people lack a good work ethic.  But you can’t very well preach from your pulpit that God created all men equally, except for the blacks who he created lazy. We built our country utilizing the work ethic of African slaves.   If I know it is wrong to ascribe to an entire race a singular characteristic like laziness or violence, I can only conclude that it is a problem with our system that is creating this great divide, not a problem with a group, or even a community of people.  And we are all responsible for that problem and for finding solutions.  I took an example from this article. 

“Structural racism is the silent opportunity killer… it inevitably perpetuates barriers to opportunities and racial disparities. Conscious and unconscious racism continue to exist in our society. But structural racism feeds on the unconscious. Public and private institutions and individuals each build a wall. They do not necessarily build the wall to hurt people of color, but one wall is joined by another until they construct a labyrinth from which few can escape. They have walled in whole communities.

For example, a government agency decides that low-income housing must be built, which will house low-income Blacks and Latinos. It fails to look for locations near jobs and important infrastructure, like working schools, decent public transportation, and other services. In fact, it is built in a poor, mostly Black and Latino part of town. When the housing is built, the school district, already under-funded, has new residents too poor to contribute to its tax base. The local government spends its limited resources on transportation to connect largely white, well-to-do suburban commuters to their downtown jobs. The public housing residents are left isolated, in under-funded schools, with no transportation to job centers. Whole communities of people of color lose opportunities for a good education, quality housing, living wage jobs, services and support-systems.

In this example, no one individual stands in front of the doorway to a better life and says, “No Blacks/Latinos/ Native Americans/Asians allowed.” Race, however, is the unspoken motivator behind a series of actions which lead to decisions about where to place the walls… The structural arrangements produced by the walling off of resources and opportunities produces the racial disparities we see today in communities of color.”

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates has written many things that have been painful for me to read and accept, but he IS the guy who is qualified to talk about racism.

“The ghettos of America are the direct result of decades of public-policy decisions: the redlining of real-estate zoning maps, the expanded authority given to prosecutors, the increased funding given to prisons. And all of this was done on the backs of people still reeling from the 250-year legacy of slavery. The results of this negative investment are clear—African Americans rank at the bottom of nearly every major socioeconomic measure in the country.”

Maybe social justice isn’t a priority for you, and maybe this won’t be your cause. But the least we can do is accept, encourage and passively (at a minimum) support movements like Black Lives Matter, rather than getting defensive and even hostile to their efforts. Racial inequality exists, and someone needs to make it their cause. BLM is not a threat, it is not bad for our country.  It is needed, it is useful, it champions liberty and fairness and equality, things we ALL agree on. Of course all lives matter, but white people don’t really need a movement.  Our movement has been centuries of advantage and prosperity.

In honor of Black History Month lets all read something about social justice in American today.  I’ll post a couple links below and I would love to read any suggestions you have for me! 

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/01/my-president-was-black/508793/

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

It was a really hard summer. 

Leaving our home in London, saying good-bye to all the people we cared about, losing our sense of all things “normal” and familiar was really hard.  Living for a month in the basements of family members was hard.  Being socially engaged, and being “on” with friends and family day after day was hard.  All the flights, road trips, late nights, jet lag, lack of schedules; that was all hard too.  House hunting, finding the “right” home only to decide that it wasn’t the “right” home, and starting over.  Trying to do right by my 3-5 month old baby.  Then living in a temporary apartment for a month, in downtown NYC with five kids where everything was unfamiliar, expensive and, hot. as. Hell.  Then finally moving into our house where for five weeks I would spend 24/7 with my five children because there were no more cousins, play dates, activities, summer camps, grandparents, friends, babysitters and my only breaks were a shopping trip to Target, two hours of primary on Sunday or an hour at Smaland in IKEA.  Just me and the kids.  I love my children SO much, but that was really hard.  It was also so hard figuring out a new city; where to shop, how to get around, where to park, etc.  Then registering the kids for school, catching up on immunizations and figuring out what to do with Miriam when the school said there was no room for her.  So many feelings; sadness, loneliness, anxiety, disappointment, stress, homesickness, fear, apprehension, resentment.  It was such a hard summer. 

It was also a really amazing summer. 

We left London with full and grateful hearts.  It was such a privilege to realize how many people cared for US. Richard had nearly six weeks off of work to be right there with us making the first half of this transition.  After returning to the U.S, over the course of six weeks my kids got to see all their grandparents, great-grandparents, and all their aunts, uncles and cousins. (Excluding Scott, Clare and Harper unfortunately.) We spent so many quality hours with family we had missed so much while we were abroad.  We also got to spend time with so many friends we had missed too. We were able to do just about everything we love to do in Boise and all around Idaho.  We ate at our favorite places and played at our favorite parks.  We also got to visit some new places and make new friends and visit new cousins that were born while we were away.  Then we moved to NYC. NEW YORK CITY! It was so exciting.  Our little explorer family has a new chance to learn to love a new city.  We found a nice house in a lovely neighborhood in Queens.  Many more feelings; joy, gratitude, anticipation, love, friendship, relief, grace and belonging.  It was a really amazing summer.  

The summer is over now, and once I’ve finished blogging about London I’ll blog about our summer. For now I feel like I’m trying to catch my breath, get my feet under me, and find some kind of new normal.  

KPMG arranged temporary housing for us in Battery Park, in downtown Manhattan, so that was where we came “home” to when we arrived in NYC.  My mom flew with me, so she was there to babysit that first Saturday while Richard and I went out with Mery, our agent, to give house hunting a second shot.  I honestly don’t remember many of the houses we saw that day at all, except the one we ended up with.  It was just two blocks away from the Juno house which meant the same schools, same ward, same neighborhood, but it was out of our price range.  Because of our experience with the first house I was really wary to get my hopes up, and I knew the landlord would have to compromise for us to be able to afford it.  But this time there were a few things working in our favor, first of which was that the landlords were at the house when we came to see it, which meant we could see them and meet them. I feel like this gives such an advantage to make a human connection, so we were people, a family, and not just names and numbers on a lease agreement.  Secondly, they landlords were incredibly kind, and I could tell they were really trying to sell US on the property. I remember walking to the small yard in the back by myself and seeing a big butterfly and having a good feeling. 

Once again we put all our eggs in one basket, there just wasn’t anything else that we felt right about, and this made me really nervous and stressed again.  The next day my mom and I packed the kids up and drove to Buffalo to spend the week with Lori and Sean and the girls.  I was on pins and needles waiting for word from our agent about reaching an agreement with the landlords, and there were a couple really frustrating moments where we felt like there just wouldn’t be a financial way for us to make it work, and the landlords seemed to be changing their mind.  (Our landlords are a fantastic Chinese couple who have been so responsive to us, but the house belongs to their son in Shanghai, who we hadn’t had the benefit of meeting in person, and who was anxious to drive a harder bargain.) 

Of course, it all worked out, we signed the lease, handed over obscene amounts of money for a deposit (renting in NYC is no joke) and planned to get the keys to the home on August 2nd. 

We love our leafy neighborhood.  Writing this post two years after it all unfolded gives me the advantage of expressing gratitude for all the things we didn’t know we were getting when we took this leap.  Our neighborhood in Forest Hills is sandwiched between two great streets (Austin St. & Metropolitan Ave.) that have almost everything we need.  We can (and do!) walk to the subway, piano lessons, the dentist, the pediatrician, the barber, the dry cleaner, the bank, the library, TARGET, Trader Joes, the baseball fields, Shake Shack, CVS & RiteAid & Duane Reade, multiple other shopping options and endless restaurants.  The elementary school has exceeded our hopes and is just around the corner from our house and the middle school meets our needs. 
 
Our house itself shockingly has more than enough space. We share a driveway with our neighbors that the kids can ride their scooters up and down.  We have a small yard, big enough to set up the tent for a backyard sleepover.  The plants and flora of NYC blow my mind every spring.  In our small yard I’ve seen blue jays, robins, cardinals, squirrels, raccoons and even an opossum, which I might add was very ugly.  

I’m so grateful that we live where we do, that things worked out, that Richard was patient and trusted his intuition. I’m so grateful for our many privileges and opportunities and I’ve seen enough of what it can be like to live in NYC that is vastly different from my experience, to realize that we have more than we need, and that we are very lucky. 

As our airplane made its final descent into LaGuardia, I sang T. Swift to Simon.  “Welcome to New York, it’s been waiting for you…”

He responded “That’s the perfect song because our plane is so late.”

Welcome to New York seems to be our new catch phrase.  It always feels like the only thing to say.

When we walked out of the airport terminal into the hot and thick humidity,

“Welcome to New York.”

When it’s 11:45 on a Wednesday night and Borough Pizza is hopping,

“Welcome to New York.”

When it’s gridlock all over Manhatten and there is a chorus of car horns,

“Welcome to New York.”

When Richard warns me that the little market outside the apartment building is really expensive,

“Welcome to New York.”

I would say it all feels like a dream, but having five kids keeps you in touch with reality.  The other night, as we drove to our temporary apartment I gawked up at the sheer awesomeness of the Freedom Tower.  But my reverie was short-lived because sweet Amirah was screaming in the backseat, probably ravenous, but we couldn’t stop to feed her because our flight that was supposed to land at 7:12 actually landed at 10:55 and the parking garage at the apartment building closes at midnight and after loading our suitcases and strapping in all the car seats, we had to make the drive from LaGuardia to Battery Park in 36 minutes. 

Welcome to New York.  

********************
I still have so much to write about our last couple months in London, but I’m feeling a little nervous about being overcome with nostalgia for our life there.  On the other hand, it will be wonderful to re-live it.  

Also, I accidentally packed my camera charging cord in the boxes that are somewhere out on the ocean, so I’m taking photos with just my phone.  If you don’t notice a difference, don’t mention it, because that was an expensive camera.  

****I’m writing this post 19 months after the fact, which is a crying shame, but it is what it is.  So I’ll do the best recollection I can.  I really do want these things documented somewhere and blogging is just the format I know best. 

Time spent with the Bird family always includes the outdoors, motorized vehicles and boats and of course good food.  We went water skiing out at Black Canyon in Emmett, where the kids played in the water and tubes and just soaked up their cousin time.  

One morning we drove up to Bogus Basin and Ben took willing participants on a hike.  I stayed back with Amirah who was snoozing in her stroller (she did a lot of that, and in fact it was awesome) and Richard and Simon did a short loop while the bigger kids went with Uncle Ben and his crew.  

We spent a lot of time in Baca and Grandpa Bird’s backyard eating BBQ, playing games and chatting.  The kids played, and even slept, in the tent trailer and spent a significant time in the hot tub that functioned more like a kiddie pool. Preston was always the fun uncle, organizing games of dodge-ball and securing the hearts of his nieces. 

There were movies and imaginary adventures in the basement, and one day  we went swimming at Laura’s parents pool. This was Amirah’s first time swimming and she wasn’t exactly thrilled, but the other kids couldn’t get enough of the diving board and even Richard can’t pass up the chance to do some crazy dives. 

For the 4th of July we went out to Star for their parade, which was a big hit with the kids, as can be expected.  I think Simon and Eli’s favorite part were the squirt guns and fire hoses.  (It was a scorcher of a day.) 

We followed up the parade with lunch at Taco Bell, because we were hungry and it was the first place we found and Richard had been craving Taco Bell for two years. 

I grew up without knowing any great-grandparents and had limited time with each of my grandparents so it’s always been important to me that my kids spend time with their great-grandparents, so we made a trip over to Idaho Falls to visit Grandpa & Grandpa Wray and Grandpa and Grandma Bird.  It was so great.  Living so far away from family and extended family is so hard- I really treasure these experiences my kids share with these people who adore them. 

We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Bird’s house in Idaho Falls, we ate Grandma’s delicious cooking, played Oh Heck and enjoyed countless of their hugs.  Visiting Grandpa and Grandma Wray was both enjoyable and painful, Grandma’s dementia has made it impossible for her to remember any of us, but she enjoyed the kid’s company anyway, and we had a nice time chatting with Grandpa.  His dry sense of humor is always good for some good laughs.  

We were also able to spend time with Richard’s Aunt Janie, Uncle Larry and cousins and their families who are all adults I always enjoy being around, and their kids, who are mostly older than my kids, but are always really playful and inclusive.  

When we flew out to NYC our cups were so full of quality family time and reassurances of the love and connection we have with our people.  We are so grateful for our families and their commitment to developing and nurturing relationships.  Is there a better feeling as a parent than knowing how many people love and adore your children, and have your backs and theirs forever for anything?

When we were planning our time in Boise, I Voxed Kim and said “We want time with you guys! A couple days at least!”

​Sean and Kim moved to Kuna not long after we did and during our time together there we had six babies between our two families. I feel like we went through a major life transition/phase together and we just feel so closely bonded with them. They are some of the best people we know and we missed them so much in London.  

I told Kim that we didn’t have time to plan much but if they just told us where to be and when, we would show up! Kim and Sean took it from there and planned a really fantastic little trip for us in Donnelly.  We left Boise on Monday morning and met up with the Wests at Subway in Cascade for lunch.  We drove up to the cabin, unloaded our stuff and then headed to the lake.  We spent a dreamy afternoon and evening playing in the sand, riding jet skis, grilling hot dogs and chicken, keeping cool in the lake and just soaking up all our favorite things about Idaho with our favorite people.  

Tuesday morning we drove up a windy but gorgeous mountain road to the trailhead and hiked up to Boulder Lake. Richard stayed back with Amirah because he had a foot injury, but Sean and Kim and I wrangled the other eight kids up the trail and I must say the kids were rock-stars.  It was so fun for me to watch them have such a good time.  Our elevation was high enough and the path was shady enough that it wasn’t too hot, and there was so much to see along the way.  

We ate our lunch at the lake, and the kids put their feet in the water and skipped rocks.  I took so many pictures, it was just so beautiful.  

We hiked back down the trail and drove back down the mountain road and spent another evening at the lake, this time just swimming and relaxing.  That night we put the exhausted kids to bed and played a new game with the adults, just like the good ol’ days.  

In the morning we reluctantly packed up and cleaned up and headed back to Boise.  It was a really nice way to spend a couple days stress-free, and we really enjoyed watching our kids pick right up with the West kids and get re-acquainted.  It was so reassuring to me to know that no matter how far away we live or for how long, we can maintain these friendships.

During our two years in London there were six new cousins born; Melissa and Harper (on the Bird side) and JaneAnne, Jeremiah, Eleanor and Frances (on the Hall side.) In addition, all the other cousins were two years older and with the exception of Charlie and Eleanor who visited us, had changed so much since we had last seen them. Needless to say, there were some really wonderful reunions taking place. 

We roughly divided our time between our families depending on which of our siblings would be visiting and other factors. After returning from NYC,  Adri and her clan and Evan and his clan all came to Boise for some good times.  

We mostly did what we Halls do best, we talked and ate good food while our kids made messes and memories. We had a picnic in the park, we had a soccer tournament, we attempted a hike that will go down in the Hall history books as a big joke about how we try to be out-doorsy but maybe we just aren’t… Instead we threw rocks in the river and soaked our feet (or our whole bodies in the case of Mim and Grace) in the hot springs.  Even if we aren’t good hikers, we are at least really good at appreciating the outdoors in more passive ways.  

Cameron and Charlie practiced a little independence and rode bikes to KFC and to the park to play soccer in the heat. Meanwhile the younger cousins spent endless hours in the backyard playhouse and on the swingset.  We went swimming at Meridian pool and Charlie inspired Cameron to do a flip off the diving board, which he quickly became obsessed with. I did some shopping with the ladies and Bryan and Will took the boys to Big Al’s to watch sports. Evan indulged Eli in some games of chess and Stratego.  There were occasional kid-fights and drama, but all in all it was all wonderful.