The first year

We've reached the end of the first school year of our seminary adventure. The student had his last final yesterday afternoon. Now he's free till the end of June, when he starts an intense month-and-a-half of Hebrew classes. Yee ha.

This has been an interesting year. The transition from Oregon to Pennsylvania is not really complete. Nor is the transition from employed-dad family to student-dad family. But we've done OK, and are now 1/4 of the way through.

Of course the kids have had the worst time of it. They are still lonely, still missing their friends. So am I! I miss the days of kids running around the house while the moms and I drank tea and talked curriculum. We have not made friends like we had back home. Casual friends, more than acquaintances, yes we have those. But not deep friendships. But then, it usually takes time to make friends and we just haven't had that much time here yet.

A big improvement that came with the move was getting our dog Max. Can't beat that. We'd never have gotten a dog in Oregon because fencing our yard would have been too daunting a task.

We miss our house, but I don't miss our neighborhood (or lack thereof). This house is still too small for us. And I feel guilty about that, because larger families than ours live in smaller houses than this one. Face it, we are spoiled after having loads of space. We miss our huge back yard; the boy desperately misses the woods and the creek. I don't miss the ugly lack of landscaping in the front - here we have a presentable, if unexciting, front yard. I miss the wild blackberries, though. There is a promising-looking vine in the backyard by the fence right now - I think it might be raspberry.

I do love being able to go for long walks through the neighborhood - our road in Oregon was too busy for that. I like walking and looking at peoples' houses, and their plants. I don't miss the slugs that ate up my hostas in Oregon. There are no slugs here. For plants, this area is a lot like Portland - everything grows here. I need to get on that. All I've planted are some bulbs and a single salvia plant (can't even remember the variety).

We haven't missed our seemingly limitless book budget. I do miss Powell's - there is no equivalent bookstore here. Is there anywhere? I miss Exodus Provisions. But, we are not buying many books. If there is something we need to own, we try to use ebay or Amazon's used books. The kids tell me that they have not felt deprived by not buying new books very often.

Obeying the homeschool laws hasn't been as difficult as I'd thought, and I have to admit I am happy to have kept all the records of our reading. The kids did more projects, too, which we are all happy about.

I got to take a class at the seminary too, as an auditor (no credit). That was so nice, even though I did not keep up with the reading. I am thinking of taking a survey of Reformed Theology in the fall. Not sure if I want to go for credit for just audit again.

Really, life isn't all that different except for living on lots less money (which is good for us) and not having so many friends around (which is not so good for us, maybe). Maybe this time of few friends is meant to help us grow closer together. Both the kids joined Scouts so there is the possibility of new friendships developing there.

Am I glad we moved? Yes and no. Still, I know without a shadow of a doubt this is where we are supposed to be. And there is great comfort in that, even on the lonely days.