Everyone Safely Gathered In (and a Little Zoo)

Having Abe home truly does make everything seem happier. I really am not exaggerating when I say that his two homecomings were two of the happiest days of my life. When he finally arrived at the airport and I'd hugged him long and repeatedly, I still kept ... I don't know ... sort of holding my hand to my chest and taking in these huge breaths almost like I'd been under water during his entire absence and was finally taking in air again. 

I feel it in small doses even in the moments when kids return from Girls' Camp or when Daisy would be back for a weekend from BYU. Just this tremendous relief! I've been thinking about all the years ahead of kids going off on missions and adventures and marrying and moving away and thinking of how much joy I will feel every single time they walk in our door again! There is this joy with feeling everyone is "safely gathered in" that I imagine connects to some eternal part of us and eternal hope in us.

Having had one child gone from all of the normal, happy sibling interactions for so long makes me see all of those interactions through fresh eyes and enjoy and appreciate the fact that they exist so much more! Sometimes it seems completely impossible that Mike and I could've just made all of these people who actually have relationships with each other, and laugh together, and like each other, and consider each other family and home. 

Here we all are together (well, not quite all -- Gold and Pen were still at Girls' Camp) at a little park in Logan that likes to think of itself as a small zoo ... even though it mostly has ... ducks. 

But, I'm not complaining. Who doesn't like ducks? Plus it's a shady, uncrowded, pleasant sort of place. 

And there were also these turtles. 

And a fox. And coyote. And lemur. Plus THIS! A caracal that 100% wanted to eat Starling. It crouched tensely with its eyes lasered right on her, then crept stealthily forward, then crouched more, ready to spring, the entire time we were near its cage. His focus never left the poor, little, small, weak one in our group for an instant. 

Here Abe was almost "The Thinker". The hand just didn't connect in time. 

It's good to have the biggest brother around again.

Summer tried to stay cheery after seeing a dead bird. 

As you can see, we kept out littlest one safe from the claws of the caracal. Here we all are after the "zoo" -- hungry and hot and thirsty at a gas-station Burger King.

The End. (Except for this picture of a Summer and her IKEA shark that I think a good portion of children in the world own.) :) 

Oh! And these fun ones of Daisy and Summer letting me mess around for a minute with my camera and some flowers in our backyard.