It’s nice to have a place to come back to, after a whirlwind vacation, but we still don’t feel like we’re home. I am thinking it’s the Ikea bed. I don’t look forward to falling into my bed because its not very comfortable and is very hot. I am happy to be out of the car and off the road. So as Juliana said, “it’s nice to be house'”

I think since we’re moving home to Sunnyvale soon, this feels more like an intermediary place and less like home than it might have if we had decided to stay longer than a year. Since we know we are moving, we already feel a bit more detached,and we don’t feel as rooted here anymore…we are kind of in Limboland.

For example, at the dinner table tonight, we talked about where we want to go first when when we get back home. The kids thought in terms of restaurants and I thought of people and places I wanted to see. The kids want to go to The Habit, Jocko’s, and Taqueria Latina. I want to go to April’s house and sit at her counter, and to my mom’s house and to the beach. Those places feel like home to me besides our own home. Our home feels like home because that’s where the kids did so many firsts. There are so many memories there that make me long for this place, even though home should be wherever we are. We’ve created so many memories together here, but home is still there… For all of us. I wonder where home is for kids who do this expat living thing for longer than 3 years. I bet it becomes confusing in a sense, and liberating in another.

Today we are back in the Netherlands – 300 days after moving away from home. That’s a long time to me!

We explored Reims, France today and drove through France, Belgium and Holland to get back here. It rained the entire day again. I’m looking forward to relaxing and catching up with everything tomorrow. Hope you had a good day!

Namaste.

Here are a few pictures from Reims, France.