Who says you can't go home?

I have come to think that "home" will probably never be one place for me. Home is John and Evelyn. Our little apartment is home, too, but hopefully only for a few years (it is, after all, very little). As dots on a map go, New York is home. In fact, in one more year, I will have lived here longer than I've ever lived anywhere else. I always get a rush of adrenaline (the good kind) when I run my first errand or go for a walk after being out of town. I love it here. It is the home I have chosen for myself. The place I lived as a student, as a newlywed. Where I had a baby. Where the doormen know my name and even some of the grocery-store checkout girls recognize me.

In a broader sense, home is also where my parents live. That's an ever-changing destination (they have now relocated 2 times to my 1, and they're about to move again), but individual pictures of everyone hanging their stockings, New Year's Eve on the good china, and seven-layer salad at every holiday meal make it home. Now that I'm married, Kingston (where John is from) is home, too. And Provo always feels a little like home even though I would never want to live there.

But there's something to be said for the streets you rode down on the big yellow bus, the parking lots you learned to drive in, the mall where you "hung out" with your friends when you were 13, the people who knew you when you were young. For the people who still love you even though they knew you when you were young (especially your teenage years). For seeing a girl you used to babysit go to her first football game in an updated version of the cheerleading uniform you once wore (yes, a cheerleader; shocking, isn't it). For the most hideous statue you've ever seen (surrounded by flags of the Confederacy). For taking your baby to sacrament meeting in the building you rushed to at 6:15 every school morning (seminary started at 6:10). For knowing how to get somewhere even though you haven't been there in 10 years. I don't think John understands it. I can't completely put my finger on it. But I go too long without hearing a soft accent and I start to miss it. And every few years, I just have to go home.

* * *

August 11 - I try to get Evelyn psyched for our trip by buying her new toys she will have to leave behind.

August 12 - We enjoy our first forward-facing car seat experience. The convertible seat won't fit rear facing on planes.

August 13 - Evelyn experiences her first lemon.

August 14 - breakfast with champions

August 15 - Who says you have to go to New York to get bad service (where the rule of thumb seems to be that if you can get out for less than $75 per person for dinner, you don't deserve a polite waiter/waitress)? And yet we all thoroughly enjoyed our much anticipated trip to the Pancake Pantry (complete with controversial sign stating, "Unattended children will be sold as slaves").

August 17 - Southern hospitality at work. If you owned a beautiful heirloom high chair that had been in your family for about 100 years, would you trust this child in it? With avocados?

August 19 - How much is that doggy in the window? Free, since he belongs to someone else. Although I have to say he is about the cutest dog I've ever seen.

Even though we will never have a dog.

August 20 - Home again.

Where Evelyn demonstrates she is not totally her mother's child by segregating the carbs while happily eating everything else.