It Feels Like Home

Sunday's activities require a blog of their own.
Sunday morning the kids and I woke up and got ready for church. We picked up my mother-in-law on the way (she helps us with the kids during church). When we got to church, we sat in our normal pew. A short while later, my dad and his girlfriend came and sat with us. We took up a whole pew, but both the kids were passed from one member of the family to the next. This reminds me of when my family would go to church when we were younger. The four of us girls and Mom and Dad. We would take up a whole pew too, but it feels good to worship with family and friends. It feels like home.
After church, we talked with other church-goers. Then my dad and his girlfriend asked if we would like to go to breakfast at a hometown cafe.
I took my mother-in-law home as she had to tend to her husband before going with us to the parade that afternoon.
The cafe was full, but as I pulled up and parked, I could hear my name being called. My dad's girlfriend's boy (12, the younger of two boys, high energy) called out to us and I took the kids and sat at the table they were all sitting at. I say all, but really I mean one of my aunts (visiting for a class reunion) and a bus-boy (from the restaurant) and two people that I didn't know (found out later that they had been at our church and were from a nearby town and they had just needed a place to sit--told you the restaurant was crowded). We pulled up another table to make room for my dad and his girlfriend and me and the kids. We sat and visited--all of us, even the people we didn't know. (It is amazing what having babies does for conversation. People who normally wouldn't talk to you now are opening up and telling all of their raising kids stories.) It feels like home.

After breakfast, I took the kids home to take their naps. My mother-in-law came out a little later and I got ready to go to the parade--no easy task when you are packing for two kids on a 90 degree day. We proceeded to the parade, parked only half a block away from where we would sit and then parked the stroller and the chairs in the shade. We were really fortunate that we found a place to park and a place to sit and both were in the shade and we were by no means early for the parade.
Burbles slept through the whole thing--I mean the whole thing. She napped in the car, then at the parade in the stroller, then in the car on the way home. She didn't even stir when I moved her from the stroller to the carseat either time.
Captain, on the other hand, we absolutely enthralled at the parade. He watched with amazement as the band marched past, then the firetrucks, tractors, princesses, a puppy, and finally horses. He ate the cheese stick that was thrown from a float (we DO live in Wisconsin) and I ate the popcicle (we don't let him eat such stuff). The excitement in his eyes was awesome to me. Rarely do you ever see such excitement in a person's eyes--and all this for a little home-town parade!
People ask how I like living back in my hometown. When I was growing up, I insisted that I would never live here after I moved away, but after meeting Fundi (who grew up here too) and then buying a house and starting my family here, I realize how blessed our family is to be situated in a small town in rural Wiscosnin where the closest McDonalds is over a half an hour away and the first get-well card you get in the mail is from the people at the local bank and the people are friendly and you can call on your neighbors for help. It feels like home.