A Week Post-Vacation

I've never felt I was much of a tourist, but I've always felt I was much of a traveler.
I guess I get restless. I used to think it was the effect of nineteen years in the same town with a whole world left to explore, but now that I've lived in two countries, and been to more than half of the states and three coasts covering two oceans—I still feel the same. I still find myself a boy ready for adventure. I've been thinking about this during my first week since vacation and thought about it again today as I rode home from church with the only other member anywhere near my age (and at 28 he's pretty near it).
I asked the brother if he felt he would retire here where he'd just moved back and without hesitation he said yes. He further commented that while he had spent the past nine years living in two countries and several states—like me—he had never felt settled, never felt at home. Now, at long last, he feels he's come home.
I don't think settling in Spokane would do that for me (sorry mom and dad).
This isn't to say I might not end up in Spokane, or here, for the long haul. It is to say that I don't yet feel entirely settled. My home is amazing. The country around me is breathtaking. I love seeing a haze of humidity settled in among the trees and to hear wind and birds and no cars. Where I'm at now is about as picture perfect as I'd ever imagined for myself. But what about the rest of the world?
I'm just beginning to accept how much I love traveling and exploring. How much these eyes love adjusting to new sights. So I miss vacation—mostly I miss so much time with my beautiful wife and boys (theyre a sight these eyes never get tired of focusing on).

The first thing that happened when we got home was stuff blew up. Several stuffs actually. A package awaited in the mail full of pop-it's and other exploding goodies for the boys who wasted no time exploding every last little surprise the very first morning after we got home.
Gerret spent a morning outside with me, watching cartoons while I read my scriptures (he always wears those red boots—he's gotten them past us and worn them to church a few times).
The last space shuttle launched this week and, by happenstance, I stumbled upon live footage of the launch and thus it was that my first and last shuttle launch unravelled before my eyes. There was something surreal about it too. Some part of me that couldn't quite accept that it was real. Here was something so large and spectacular about it, and yet something so akin to childhood fancy and cheap movies. I'm glad they made it away safe though and wonder what my children will know of the delights of space exploration.
Gerret was his normal outlandishly goofy self all week.
The birds who built their nest right outside my window at work have lucked out and their babies hatched into little hairy pink things (I'm not sure why they've not been devoured, it really wouldn't take much, even a lazy cat could do it, the nests only about 4 feet off the ground). It was amazing to discover them there. Members of my credit union pointed them out to me one day as they sat in my office and I've watched their progress ever since. Earlier this week we saw them begin to hatch, little peaks poking through, and yesterday I went out to enjoy the parents' hard work. All day they flew back and forth finding food. One would sit on the nest warming the little peeps while the other went foraging. Then, at the return of one with food to share, the other would dart off to work. It was only at these moments that the little lumps cme out of their huddled mass and extended their necks high enough for me to see their little beaks.
We capped the week off with our annual journey to Pagaent at the Hill Cumorah. I was much less entranced than in years past, but maybe it was because I left home at 8am yesterday and got back after midnight, or maybe it was just the fact that we showed up Pagaent three hours early with nothing to do but sit in the blazing sun and entertain our boys. Oh well, the sacrifices of parenthood. The boys loved it.