June

As can be seen from the date of this post, this year is absolutely flying by. I had intended to write this on June 1st, but somehow time just seems to slip away too easily. That's probably because the pace of life is picking up, with my wife starting back into roller derby, my masters course starting and Jake's T-ball season continues. However, I wanted to stop and think about this month in particular, as it feels like an unusually important one in a variety of ways:

1. End of school
This feels bizarre to me still. Part of my brain is so deeply ingrained in the UK education system that the end of May feels like it should be holiday time (for Whitsun), but the end of school is then another 7+ weeks away. It feels strange to have 12 days left on my calendar, and that's even after the extension of 5 days due to the snow in the winter (which feels like a lifetime ago now!). The start of the school year in the end of August seems impossibly far away, and while last year I didn't really notice the change as I worked at a summer school, the long vacation seems both enticing (for me) and daunting (for my upcoming students to forget everything). While I'll never complain about a 10 week break, there is something to be said for multiple short vacations to keep everyone fresh.

2. Sophie turns 2
This is the craziest feeling. I could just about handle Jake turning 5 (this will feel more problematic when he starts school in September, but more on that in another post), but Sophie still feels like my little baby, so the idea that it's been 2 years since she was born seems mad.  It's been a big year for her though, learning to walk, becoming much more sociable and learning to communicate (sometimes through sign, sometimes with words). Her birthday party is unlikely to be on the same scale as Jake's, most likely hanging at the lake like last year, but I already can't wait to see what her 3rd year is like.

3. Visitors
Beyond my immediate family, and a fleeting day visit from Dan in October, we have had no visitors since Mei Ying, James and Robin just after we arrived last year. This will change when our best friends arrive in New Hampshire later this month and stay for a couple of weeks. We always said that the biggest challenge of moving here is losing our tight knit group of friends in the UK, and this has proven to be the case. Even with faster internet making Skype calls manageable and enjoyable, there is something to be said for face to face communication, and the opportunity to generate new memories. This will be their first time out here, and we've always talked with them about the many different experiences that we can't wait to share with them. It's going to be great to have finished the school year and start the vacation by hanging out with my favorite people, showing them our new home and getting to act like tourists again.

4. Our first trip to the UK
One of the first posts on this blog was about the nature of home, and I've continued to discuss and think about this over the last 15 months. New Hampshire definitely feels more like home, and our house is becoming home more and more. Just typing the title of this paragraph made me pause, as my instinct was to say our first trip home, but that doesn't feel right either. We fly out on the 30th (the same day as our visitors, who we will see in Leeds the following day (no prolonged and sad goodbyes just yet!)) and spend a week in Leeds before flying to Italy to see my parents. Our time in Leeds already feels stressful, as we left so many good friends behind, we feel the need to see as many of them as possible for as long as possible. Because it's been so long since we've been there, people are taking time out of their schedules and travelling to see us, so it feels like our schedule is already squeezing tight. I just worry that we'll end up not seeing enough of everybody and that our time in Leeds will be over before we know it, and it will be a year (bar a couple of fleeting days in December) before we're back again. But this is one of the negative consequences of making the move, and hopefully we can do a good enough sales job on our friends that we persuade them to come visit and spend some longer quality time with just us.

It's going to be quite the month! My brain can't plan anything beyond the end of this month, so when people ask me about July and August, I just nod and write it down somewhere. As for next school year; well that just feels like another planet right now. I'll be glad when school is out and I can focus on the fun start to the summer vacation.