Living in an RV in Knuths' backyard...

Well, back in the country, and back to real life? We returned from Belize very early Monday morning, making it to Chaska and Mike's parents' at about 1:30am. We slept a few hours, got up at a reasonable hour, and departed for Madison, WI, a mere 5 1/2 hour drive to pick up our "house" for the next few weeks. We met Mom, Dad, Kate, and Finn in Madison, grabbed some much needed red meat and green salad together (we'd been missing those two items specifically), and then went our separate ways, Mike and I to Duluth, and the rest of the clan back to Indy.

I finally met my nephew. And he's so much of everything more than I thought. I didn't know I could feel this way about such a small person, and he's not even mine. Watching Kate be a mom, hearing in person and seeing and touching what I've missed over the past months, I am utterly struck by the flood of emotions of our growing family. I've cherished the moments that we've added brothers, but it does seem like there's a certain amount of predictability in what types of people these guys are and what they will add to our family in that we generally hear about and know them for months or even years before they are officially added. With Finn, there was a basketball in Kate's tummy and then there was Finn. Sweet, smiling, gurgling, adorable, soft, wonderful Finn. I don't even know who he is yet, or who he will be, but I know that I love him. Maybe my heart is tender to kids after this summer with so many sweet small ones, but I just want to hold him and watch him... Makes me love and appreciate my sister all the more too; so proud of you and James, Kate!

And being back, we've started to process this summer. I'll probably use the next few installments to try and give you a taste of what I think, but it's all a little fuzzy right now. Don't exactly know if this is culture shock, my introverted self recovering from so much extroversion, or just that we are that tired. We feel a little like we've lost two months of our lives, and yet at the same time, so much has been packed into those two months that it feels more like a year's worth of stuff crammed in between the rest of our life. That doesn't exactly make sense, but I don't have the descriptive powers of my next eldest and younger sisters.

I've started to have a notion of how to explain what's been happening, but I think I need to journal a little more before trying to explain it... But for now, I feel a little bit like my life is a chess board, I'm the king or maybe the queen, not sure. And there are all these other pieces that move around me and influence my game, my life. And there are things that happened five moves ago that I am only now understanding why they happened. And there are moves happening now that I'm hoping will become clear in the future. God has control of all these pieces and all these movements; He already knows the outcome of the game. It's a little bit like Searching for Bobby Fischer, for those of you who have seen that movie; Josh has to learn to see how each move will set him up for 5 or 10 or even 15 moves down the way. I can't see what's happening as only one piece, but it's being directed very specifically. More later...


And now for a poll from Mike:

Should Mike keep the beard?
	Yes
	No
	Soul Patch Baby!
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