So Close. So Far. So Perfect

Each year at the end of our summer we take a little family trip.

This year, regardless of the start date of the school year for one sweet small five year old, we've decided to uphold the tradition.

We'll take a little hop, skip and a jump across the deep blue sea and visit our friends who live in the red, white, and blue.

I can't wait.

Though not far, we feel like we're in a completely different time zone and worlds away from ours. It's a short but sweet retreat.

Packed with "annuals" we have built up quite the little repetoir of favourite hot spots and we'll no doubt hit them again this year - and add a few extras.

I recall a moment from last year's family trip. We were all in a park, in one of our favourite locations. The boys, playing on a jungle gym completely oblivious to what was going on only a few feet from them.

Huddled together on a set of swings, their Mama and Daddy were quickly learning the fate of their journey towards one small baby sister.

Straining to read together, the wording on the small screen of an iPod while scamming wireless service from some poor sucker who didn't bother to lock down their router, we remained absolute motionless position because one wrong move and we'd lose the signal, sending us back to square one of trying to relocate it and begin downloading the beast of the document. Trying desperately to read, understand, absorb all that was and is the Restructuring Proposal, we wanted to understand completely every bullet point detail.

I recall thinking how long we would have to wait to find out whether or not it would be accepted.

And then, the next thoughts on which I would not allow myself to dwell. How long after that? The wording - the months, possibly years seemed an eternity to wait. And now, here we are exactly a year later...all the wiser for what we have endured. All the more seasoned yet still as anxious to know her.

I wonder daily: a year from this day how will our family look? What will we be doing? What will life look like from the outside in?

It's exciting, isn't it?