home again, home again, sort of...

every time i come back from pittsburgh i feel as though i'm both leaving home, and coming home. i think i have an overly romantic view of not just moving back to pittsburgh, but moving onto the same street as my brother's family and seeing their kids almost every day.

i know as much as i would like it to be, that even that exact situation wouldn't turn out quite as i imagine it. i know that each place has its problems, and perfection cannot be found on this earth. i also know that the grass seems greener on the other side.

however, despite many things i'm still a bit of a romantic, and therefore i still hold out hope that someday it'll happen. the moving and living near them part - not the perfection part.

many many times i've thought how great it would be to build your own community. plan out the houses and the streets, and then reserve said houses and streets for your family and closest friends.

i'd put both of our families on our street, and my closest friends next to them. how great would it be to surround yourself with a handpicked community all the time?

what a great weekend though. friday i started off with a run through the hills surrounding my dad's house - hills which we sorely lack in charlotte - and had sore legs for the rest of the weekend as a result. but it felt so good to just run and not think about how far or how fast i was going. to just RUN.

my dad and i also took a trip up to visit grammy's grave. i cried. i still cry. i talk to her sometimes. i have a lot of her in me.

last week i discovered a bag of uneaten [mini] reese's cups in our pantry, and treated myself to two or three after lunch and dinner for a few days as a sort of tribute to gram.

i can hardly believe that she's been gone for a year. over the past few weeks stories have come back to me. those little moments with her. the way she said "i love you". her [sometimes brutal] honesty. her stubbornness. her sense of humor. the look on her face when i came up to visit her for what turned out to be the last time. they are each etched in my mind.

saturday we celebrated ally's 4th birthday. i'm still in a state of shock that she's 4. AND that zach is 18 months old. i just put the newest picture of them in the frame on my desk. i have to shake my head at how big they've gotten, and how much older they look. crazy how that happens...

anyway, ally wanted to have a dalmatian party for her birthday. she came to her party as cruella deville - or cru-ally deville as matt said. we dressed zach as a little dalmatian puppy. i'll try to remember to upload some other pictures from the party soon, but until then here's one i stole from sarah:

sunday brought time to think on my almost 8 hour drive back.

i've had a lot to think about lately. peter and i both have, and i think each of us has fueled the other in many different ways. we've each been trying to figure out how to help each other and where to go from here.

life throws curves and

we're trying to swerve in the right direction.