Back in the Saddle Again

We've been back one week now and the fog is finally starting to clear.  The bags are unpacked, the mountains of laundry are done and I am slowly remembering how to run our household.  After blending our family with several others for weeks on end, being on our own again took a little getting used to.  And I'm still a little sad because I'm really most in my element when I'm mixed in with the rest of my family.  When I called my nephew Zack for his birthday on Monday, I wanted to be there to hug him and pull on his ears twelve times (he's really five but insisted to me on the phone that he was twelve).

Fortunately, I am blessed to have amazing in-laws and wonderful friends here.  I saw one of them Saturday night.  While our husbands were at Minute Maid Park cheering on the Astros without success, she and I hung out with our girls and watched my parents' video.  It takes a true friend to sit through over thirty minutes of mostly people she doesn't know and I was grateful because I very much enjoyed sharing it.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Madeleine set up a nail salon and took orders for custom designs from her sisters and small buddies.  Here are a couple of her masterpieces.  (She must get this talent from her dad because I am hopeless with nails!)

So--the point of this post?  I guess I don't have one.  We came home from Virginia a little more conflicted than when we left.  There are things we love about being Texans and things we long for back in Virginia.  So I suppose I'm like that proverbial kid insisting, "but I want both".  I haven't figured out how to solve that problem but in the meantime, life goes on and we are blessed.