"East or West, Home is Best" is taking on a whole new meaning.

I'm looking through all our pictures this afternoon, (okay, not all of them, because that would take roughly two days, including infrequent meals and bathroom breaks,) picking out some of my favorites to order and take with me across the bounding billows. (Incidentally, Mamaw asked yesterday if I'd be traveling to Ethiopia via boat. Um, no.)

Not only is this picture search making me teary/happy/reminiscent/amused, it's making me realize for the hundredth time that I'm going to be so doggone homesick. Really. I am.

I love to travel, I do. But BY FAR the best part of every trip is coming home. I didn't used to feel that way. I dreaded coming home from a trip, (all the laundry, all the boring normalcy,) but now? Now I embrace unloading and coming in, rushing cozily around with mama, putting everything to rights. I love everything being in its right spot. I just love my house. It's beautiful, and it's home.

And my family. We're a very tight knit group, you see, and rarely does a day pass, (I would say close to never,) when I or Mama don't talk to Laura and Anna on the phone at least once apiece. And text with Joseph and Jacob. Even see their faces once in a blue moon. :) And, of course, the kiddies are in and out all week long.

So, wow. I'm leaving all this for three and a half-ish months? (There's a not-tiny part of me that's still hoping for AHOPE to email and say "oh, we're only going to need you for six weeks. No more."

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy about this trip. I am very genuinely looking forward to all of it - the bewilderingly new experiences, the novelty and difficulty of living in a third world country, taking care of the children, loving new people... all of it. Except for the homesickness I know will come, probably the moment I step on to the plane.

I'm not scared of it. I don't expect to be miserable, because I'll have the most important Person with me, and it's not like going half-way around the world fifty years ago, for heaven's sake.

But that doesn't mean leaving all this will be easy.





















p.s. I have a little crush on our Hopper Room. I want a room exactly like it in my house o' dreams.