this is america, baby: one.

Keeping up while Stateside is laughable. The sheer pace of this country is a force to be reckoned with, in addition to our lives here as we try to seize every moment with every person we see in every city we visit.

I’ll just go ahead and say that we fail at this: we miss milestones, even while we are here. Some days we are tired, and I know we miss out on actually being present. Other days we are just overwhelmed, and I know I don’t communicate well or I don’t cherish the person in front of me that I haven’t seen in ages.

We’re trying. Every time we’re trying to sort this out more and more: how to live there and live here, to just live well and to be thankful for the opportunity to do so.

This has been my mantra while we are here: this is America, baby! Be thankful.

So without further adieu, here is part 1, where we spent quite a bit of time with my family after my dad’s epic 60th birthday party.

First, we had Green Day. This is exactly what it sounds like: a day for all of us to wear green wherever we went.

This included a trip to my brother-in-law & niece’s school to visit. Ignore the fact that we are blurry since we’re just happy to be holding nieces and nephews!

You can also ignore the fact that two of us have our eyes closed here.

We always play some games, and unfortunately the Spurlocks & Helmicks always ended up at the losers table for Euchre.

We went to All Aboard, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Little Rock. There is something very magical about having your food delivered to your table by train.

We took a climb up Pinnacle with nine adults taking turns carrying five children.

We did a triple date night, with the two littlest babes joining us. 

We sang Roar! and obviously these two are the best roarers!

While a large percentage of us were on the same continent, we attempted some family photos.

This is dad’s favorite pose.