This is the Place

My family is my greatest blessing, and my greatest source of jobs. I have five children and one man-child husband, who is really great with fourteen-year-old boys because he secretly is still a fourteen-year-old boy with a checkbook. I love them all dearly and appreciate all of their funny little quirks and annoying habits. We all have them, don't we?

Secretly when I was in high school, taking all of my important classes and trying to be a smarty-pants, I had a talk with myself. What do you really want to be in this life? I asked myself. The answer surprised me. I just wanted to be a mom. I just wanted to raise beautiful, happy children and be the one responsible for that success. Not a captain of industry, not a noted author, and certainly not a salesman. Just a mom. It's been the best job ever.
One of my favorite things to do is take my kids out to see the fabulous sights around our city. Every city has a zoo, but does your city have a fully-functioning authentic pioneer village? Ours does. It's called This is the Place State Park and its one of my favorites.

I love pioneers. I always have. I'm sure it comes from hearing all the stories about my ancestors coming to America from Norway and Sweden my whole childhood. I would always ask my great Aunt Aurora to tell me the stories of her grandparents, who came and settled in a small dusty town in the middle of nowhere long ago.

Every time I take my children somewhere, especially somewhere historical, I always try to help them understand how people had to live way back when. And how they would have to change their lives as they are now to be able to survive back then.

I feel the same way about mothering. I wish someone would have taken me to the mother park before I had kids and explained to me that this was something that would change my life, and how that change would affect every cell of my body, every thought I would have, and every choice I would make. Sometimes I feel like I have settled down into a dusty little town in the middle of nowhere with little strangers surrounding me. I have had to scratch out a living with my bare hands, learning how to farm and harvest for the small ones who depend on me for so many things. Sometimes I look around and wonder, why would I ever do this to myself? And sometimes I look around, pleasantly surprised at how I love the land I live in, and say, This is the Place.