Motherland 2017

We have made our plans to travel to the US this summer! One of the reasons we only go to the US every second year is so that it never gets taken for granted, or becomes a hassle. And that strategy is definitely paying off: WE ARE SO EXCITED.

Jeremy asked me the other night what I was most excited about in the US, besides seeing family (because that's obviously number one). I didn't really have an answer - there's no ONE thing, you know? It sounds dumb to say, for example, that I'm looking forward to Tillamook cheese, but wrapped up in that Tillamook cheese is the visit to the factory, and the free samples, and the ice cream and cheese curds you buy on your way out, and the fact that we're usually camping on the beach on the same trip. It is all of those things at once.

Or binge-reading the latest YA lit from the public library and reading it at my brother's house while Sterling gorges himself on playing Legos and cars upstairs and the girls jump on the trampoline with cousins. Does that count as a "something" to look forward to? Because I do. I look forward to days and days of doing almost-nothing stuff like that.

Or sending the girls to sewing lessons in Idaho Falls, and I go on a run while they're there. What is it about that, exactly, that I look forward to? Certainly I do similar things here in Finland.

So I can't say there is any specific thing that I'm looking forward to the most in the US. Rather than things, it's feelings and tastes and environments and experiences and people. And we're getting it all this summer!