Today feels a little surreal. According to our original itinerary, we were going to fly from Denver to San Francisco and visit with family during our long layover. We are on our way to Australia later today, but since there were storms over Denver last night, our plan got disrupted and we ended up flying into Sacramento instead.

And so, as always, Aunt Chini came to the rescue. She made the amazing offer to drive all the way to Sacramento early on Easter Sunday to pick us up, drive us back to visit with the rest of the family and then back to the San Francisco airport at the end of the day.

We had a short, but meaningful day with family. They put on an Easter egg hunt for the kids, and we met our niece at Stanford for a walk around the lake and a chance to see the campus and hear about her first year there. The kids played chess with anyone they could corner, we ate amazing food and we wrapped up the day with an energetic dance party. For how many hours we had, we were able to make the most of it. Thank you, Anna and Mike for the generous hospitality.

It was the kind of beautiful spring day that you dream about in Northern California. And coincidentally, a number of friends from the area got in touch during the day. The air was cool in the shade and warm in the sun. The sky was translucently, radiantly, blue. The smell of the eucalyptus trees drifted in the windows and California poppies painted the hills orange.

On our way back from Sacramento, we drove through Davis to get some coffee at Philz. The sidewalks were filled with students and families and new businesses have been filling the up storefronts. I felt homesick today in a way I haven’t felt for a while. We’ve been back many times before, but I always felt like I was mourning the losses wrought by the pandemic when we visited before. This time I felt like I could see the growth and rebirth of what comes next.

And yet as homesick as I felt for Northern California, here we are, on our way to Melbourne, Australia. And I realize how lucky I feel to be where we are right now, in this moment of our lives. So I’ll look forward to what comes next for us, but not so much that I miss this amazing moment that we’re in right now. I feel extraordinarily lucky to be able to spend so much time with Tim and these radiant kids of ours. And to have the opportunity to explore the world together with them.

I’ll do my best to post from our trip, but the first few days are going to be a whirlwind. So we’ll see what comes.