“…one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green…”

– Tolkien

I spent all night and day with a sick babe.  It is amazing how quickly things change.  One day, you’re hiking through the mountains or playing in a forest of fairies.

The next, you are in constant, quiet motion, calming, comforting, soothing, cleaning.  I hate when my children are sick.  But, I feel grateful for the time to stop and do nothing but sit next to them and watch.

Things become so quiet, and the times that are healthy become so much more appreciated.  I can’t tell you how many times today I have said prayers of thanks that we were so healthy while we travelled in our little RV for all those months.

Today, I just looked around me.  I looked around at the comfort of home, and felt so blessed.  I looked at our incredible, quiet life.  No major interruption or upheaval has to happen when we are sick.  We just slow down a bit more.  Most of all, I just looked at six little faces, some feeling well, some feeling terrible.  All delicious and mine.  I am so thankful for a life of less noise.

Say a little prayer for my sick ones tonight? :)  All will be well.

Blessed am I.

“Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days…days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God.”

-John Muir

I have been aching since we’ve been back to return to the Tetons.

We finally had the chance yesterday.

It was a perfect, bluebird day.

We snowshoed and hiked for hours.

A ranger told me yesterday that often one visit to the Tetons is enough to change a person’s life forever.

We already knew that.

We make it into Yellowstone at least once a week right now.  It requires a lot more effort than in the warmer months, but it is worth it.  From the moment I enter those borders, I am home.

(This is Richie, the girls’ hiking mascot.  Every kid should have a mascot, don’t you think?)  :)

I marvel sometimes at the things that were once difficult that have become second nature.  I remember last year, working for an hour at times to get 6 little bodies into snow gear and 6 little pairs of snowshoes strapped to 12 little feet.  Now, we can hop out of the car and strap those things on in minutes.

Yesterday, we explored a new trail.  We floated over the hills of snow and down to the river.  We crossed it and left the trail, opting this time to follow the winding Gallatin further and further.

I love snowshoeing.  I love the work.  I love how much more deliberate each step is.  There is little joy in the world like stepping out into a completely untouched white world that has not seen other feet in so very long.

We found a perfect place to stop and rest.  We played and listened to the bubbling water flow under the ice.

We ate the pure, untouched, wild snow.  I laid down in it and watched the sky and the clouds.

My oldest lay on her stomach and leaned over the bank (she was completely safe), punching the ice in small bursts, to break clumps of river ice out and pull them up for her sisters.

In moments like that, I feel like I could explain the meaning and purpose of anything and everything.  Everything is whole and clear.  Everyone becomes so much quieter, listening to what she is being taught, even while playing.

My children begged to stay when it was time to go.  We stayed a half hour more.

We finally left our little place to head back to the car and back to the things that needed doing.  I heard one of my girls promise the river she would be back soon.  Chunks of layered, sparkling river ice were carried gently until we reached the car and they absolutely had to stay behind.

There are times I feel a little sorry for the strength it takes to be a child who walks such a different path.  There is so much rush and activity that we have chosen to stay out of, and that sets them apart and makes them different. But then I look at my children and the light in their eyes and a piece of the river in their hands and I realize, I am not sorry at all.

I’m so grateful for a year of very simple living.  It has taught me to slow down, to see and savor.  More than anything in my days, I see love.  Love is the bright mountain moon, shining down from heaven, assuring me that all of the answers will come and the paths made clear.

Love is listening to my children drift off to sleep, one by one, to the sound of their father’s bed time story.

Love is a sleepless night with children, and still wanting nothing more than to simply be with them all day.

Love is celebrating little moments of progression and forgiveness.

God gave us families to help us become what He wants us to be—

This is how He shares His love, for the family is of God.

– Matthew Neeley

Yesterday dawned bright and cold.

It was one of those days that is so cold that all moisture leaves the air and snow and you are left with a million brilliantly glittering cold diamonds reflecting back into your eyes.

The girls and I try to take the approach that there is no such thing as bad weather.  No matter how cold, we try to get out and enjoy it.

It’s also my increasingly firm mantra for life this year.

We went snowshoeing along the river.

The girls are always seeking, when we hike through the woods, for that one perfect tree.

The tree that will feel like “home,” where we will stop for a while and they will play under its branches.

No matter our path, we always seem to find it eventually, as long as we keep going in spite of cold.

The forest knows the secrets we need to learn, the life amid cold, the perfect home tree, just ahead.

“The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls, and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song, our very own, and sings our love.”

-John Muir

It has been a brief season of sweet rest.  Though nothing has happened to change it, I can feel my heart being pulled again.

I can feel the possibility of decision and change coming.  My heart has ached with raw emotion the past week…a constant recommitment to a path that is different than once hoped.  A decision to be glad in spite of sorrow.  Such a good decision, but never easy or without that raw feeling of new skin on a changed heart.

I’ve learned that asking, seeking, and knocking mean different things than I once thought.  “Knock and it shall be opened…” It doesn’t always mean that if you ask, you will be given.

“What man among you, having a son, and he shall be standing out, and shall say, Father, open thy house that I may come in and sup with thee, will not say, Come in, my son; for mine is thine, and thine is mine?” – JST Matthew 7:17

I think that, instead, it means that if you knock, whatever the answer is, it will be what brings you in to Him.  Sometimes, that may be exactly the opposite of what you asked.  But you will be with Him.  And that, above all, is where I want to be.

“…for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

“I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” – Phil. 4: 11-13

I’ve been thinking a lot about Paul and about what he said about knowing how to both be abased, and how to abound, about living fully, whatever comes my way.  It is a gift to know how to fully humble and submit, and it is a gift to know how to accept abundance and enjoy it in its moment.  The greatest gift is to do both at once, for they are twinborn.

Be full with what you have…be hungry for what you lack or long for that brings you in to Him.

Knock and it shall be opened.

My heart was so heavy with so many things the other day.  I went out into the snow with the girls.

I took them to their favorite hill.  I wonder sometimes how many of their memories will involve flying down a hill or dragging an increasingly heavy sled back through the woods to their cabin.  Many, I hope.

As the girls flew over and over down the enormous hill, I laid down in the snow and looked up into heaven.

Flakes fell from the vastness above and tiny darts of ice fell and melted on my face.  Each one had travelled so far to tell me that all was well.

Every moment in my life, every uncontrollable circumstance, every decision, every effort, every struggle, had led to that quiet moment in the snow.  And that quiet moment was leading to every moment that would follow thereafter.

That moment was perfect, encapsulating everything we have worked to become.  That one moment would lead to more, and all would be well.

In the mornings, when I walk the dog, I watch the sun brighten the trees and listen to the birds calling and flitting through the branches.  I walk the snow-lined paths and breathe the air.

In the summer, more people will be around, but for now, it’s just us.  I try to drink it in.

The Yellowstone area woods called me here, and they have taken me in and changed me.  I feel like the tiniest part of this vast forest, so happy to be where I am meant to be.

We make this beautiful little home more ours everyday.  At night, I go out and look up at the stars.  Nowhere in the world has stars like these.  It feels incredible to sit by the fire at night and know that I am home, home at last.

“Fear nothing. No town park you have been accustomed to saunter in is so free from danger as the Yellowstone. It is a hard place to leave...You may be a little cold some nights, on mountain tops above the timber-line, but you will see the stars, and by and by you can sleep enough in your town bed, or at least in your grave. Keep awake while you may in mountain mansions so rare.”

– John Muir

Time has slowed down lately.

Boxes are being unpacked slowly, old treasures rediscovered.

Most of them can wait, though.  I’m in no rush.

This babe turned seven this week.  Seven.

Seven years ago, on a bleak, February day, she came into the world.  Robed in sorrow and pain, a babe of light was in my arms.

She has taken me on a seven-year journey.  She doesn’t know it, but she has changed everything.  I know I write this every year, but each one of her birthdays is like a celebration of life.  She is a gift from Heaven, a mercy, a miracle.  Everyone who meets her is made glad.  She is pure.

Today I watched her.

She sat for hours, very still, in the snow, near her bird feeder, birdseed in hand, just waiting.

She watched the little mountain chickadees dance around her.  She called to them, and they did not fear her.

She kept her hand outstretched, breathlessly waiting.  Finally, after hours, it happened.  A little bird flitted from a branch to her small hand, ate a seed, and then flew away.  She told me that it only lasted a moment, but it felt like it lasted forever.

Tonight, I feel so blessed.  Blessed and so grateful.  Grateful for a quiet life, and the peace in my heart (largely because of this child) that life is precious and not to be wasted on rushing.  Goodnight, friends.

Home.

That word has held so many different meanings for me this year, each of them special.

But this is the sweetest of all.

A place that I know I belong.  My mountains, my woods.

I don’t have many pictures yet.  Just tiny glimpses that have made us grab the camera here and there.

More soon, as we move in and make it our own.

We’re home.