Memories

This weekend marked the first thing that we have done to complete the cycle of being home a year. Of course, we haven't actually been home a year yet--only 11 months (as of yesterday!).

We got home the afternoon of Christmas Eve last year. Because of circumstances surrounding our travel, we had a quiet homecoming all to ourselves which I really think was best. That night, we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church. We snuck in late and sat in the balcony so as not to see too many people. We continued to keep the first few weeks very low-key, but one thing we did do was go see the Christmas lights at Our Lady of the Snows Shrine in Belleville, IL. The boys loved Christmas lights and the Shrine has it set up where you drive through the story of Christmas, so there weren't crowds or loud music or anything else to contend with. They thought the lights were cool but I don't think they had any idea what they were really looking at. ;)

This past Saturday, we went to the Shrine lights again. This time, they got it. :) They knew what they were looking at and for, and they had a lot of fun pointing out all of the different things they saw--camels, angels, stars. I must confess to getting a little misty-eyed as we drove in. We're coming full circle with their first year home. I'm pretty sure the boys don't remember going to the Shrine last year--they'd been home a week and there'd been an awful lot of changes happening in the month previous. But it doesn't matter. I'm so happy to be establishing positive patterns for them, building a foundation of trust and faith that this is real, and this is permanent.