We’re in Boston. I had to give a talk today in Cambridge. So we’re making a whole trip of it.

While I was off giving my talk, Braydon and the bambinos swam in the hotel pool. Then we all met up for dinner in Harvard Square at Border Cafe. Oh my gosh. What a surreal moment: to be there with our bambinos.

While we were in graduate school Braydon and I spent many-a-night at The Border with many-a-friend eating many-a-chip-and-queso-dip and drinking many-a-marg. To be there again, 12 years (or 13/14/15/16 years… who’s counting?!), with our kids… wowzas, what a trip that was!

Boston peeps, dear old friends from those grad school years: it was quite something. (Imagine: ordering margs and milk — oh, and root beer — at The Border, with your bambinos?!!?!!!!)

The queso dip was just the same– the best dang queso dip in the whole darn world. All three bambinos agreed.

Now they are fast asleep in the hotel, high above Boston, on the 12th floor, overlooking the Charles river, with full bellies, after a full day. Yay for new trips to old places.

(Tomorrow we’re off to Maine to meet our new nephew/cousin!!!)

The Annual Great Easter Egg Decorating Event. It is always an event. And this year was no exception.

This year, however, it was shockingly tame. And, for the first time ever, no eggs broke! Times they are a’changing!

After the whole thing was cleaned up Braydon and I reminisced about the good old days when I’d have to buy double the eggs because at least half would be smashed, egg yolk was flying all over the place, and egg dye was splattering everywhere. On some level we miss those crazy days with the tiny twinny tornados who were so impossible to contain in their excitement over every single thing in the whole wide world. But on most levels… we’re glad those days are in the past. We like these days that we have happening right here and right now.

This year, we could actually enjoy the Great Easter Egg Decorating Event without fear of a tremendous egg-dye-accident or some other tragedy. This year, we’re truly grateful for a new season (literally, and figuratively).

Lastly… as is now becoming tradition… I am re-linking to this Easter Haiku from 2011 (click here!!!). Two years later and this still perfectly expresses how I am feeling right about now. Ah yes, the more things change, the more things stay the same. (!!!!!!!)

Last week was spring break for the bambinos.

It is always difficult to juggle the school breaks. But this year’s spring break seemed the easiest (and therefore, truly, best) ever. Maybe because we’re living on campus? (That makes Mama working during the bambinos’ spring break so much more fluid in so many ways.) Or maybe it is because they are getting older? (They are so much more self-sufficient; they can play for long stretches on their own; they don’t need as much structured time.) Or maybe it is just a fluke? (Who knows?)… but it was a great and relatively easy/painless week for all involved. Don’t get me wrong: there were some ‘moments’ (i.e., close-to-the-brink-of-insanity while hoping-a-video-keeps-them-quiet-during-a-meeting and/or one or another parent almost loses their mind while trying to make the work-at-home-kids-at-home thing work and/or one child or another almost loses their mind from intense unstructured time with their siblings for days on end…. yes, it is all in there. The good, the bad, as always, all wrapped up together.

Anyhow… we put together a great week full of unstructured down-time and change-in-routine, balanced with some fun outings that made the week feel really special. The key (for us, at least) is having a plan! And then implementing it. Our plan was good. And it went off with very few fumbles.

The highlights were the bookends of the week: at the start, a day trip to NYC (to see Annie on Broadway!!!), and at the end, a day trip to the beach (the Jersey shore! not our favorite beach, but a beach nonetheless, and sometimes a beach is all you really need).

Of course, a trip to NYC is not complete for us without soup dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai! And a trip to the beach in March is not complete for us without all three kids in their parkas up to their knees in the frigid ocean. In between all this we had lots of fun with other things too. Including– K & O got Meera much much closer to mastering the art of the cartwheel; a few fun chunks of time with awesome babysitters; the rare experience of three of us sitting still at one time and reading together quietly in the family room (when I say ‘rare’ I mean very rare… particularly for us particular three); a family slumber party (a sleep over in the family room complete with pizza, a movie, and a big breakfast the next morning)!; and lots of other things too that were not captured in photos.

The campus is about to burst into bloom. The bambinos’ school has Spring Break this week, so we’re juggling working and having them home. Not easy. But knowing that spring is here makes everything seem easier. The February Funk and the January Blues are behind us. Hello Spring!!!

The bambinos have taken to being on the look-out for green stems pushing through the ground, buds about to pop open on tree branches, and fresh sprouts everywhere we are. This year we all seem especially mindful that spring is in the air. Today there was screaming and shouting from the back seat of the car as K, O, and M spotted some bright blooms alongside Sayre Drive. We stopped and got out so that they could get a close look. They found bright yellow crocuses blooming– the official first blooms of spring!

And today we went to Lehigh Baseball’s home opener! I had to get to a meeting, and it was pretty cold out, so we only stayed for the first three innings. But for Kyle and Owen nothing quite says “Spring” like the first baseball game of the season! (A new season, a new sport. And so life goes with K & O.)

We’ve had lots of great outings in the past few weeks. At the very top of the list was a trip to the Allentown Art Museum to see their current Haitian Art exhibit. For anyone local, especially those with any Haitian connection, this is a Must-See!

We went on a Sunday afternoon, expecting to just make a quick trip of it (assuming it would be a very small exhibit). It turned out to be one of the major current exhibitions at the museum, and Haiti and the Caribbean was the current theme of the entire Children and Family Gallery and Art Education Center. We spent the bulk of the afternoon at the museum and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. It was such a pleasure to just soak in the Haitian art.

We invited Karl and Ralph, two of our Haitian friends, to come with us. Karl is a Lehigh alum (he was one of my favorite students, and now works at Lehigh in Communications). Ralph is a Lehigh sophomore — one of my current favorites. These guys are good friends of our family and it was a joy to spend a Sunday afternoon with them. We had them over for lunch and then we all took in the Haitian Art Exhibit together. It was a good and uplifting and memorable outing. We are so fortunate to have such great role models so actively involved in the lives of our sons.

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Last week was Lehigh’s Spring Break. Which meant (among other things), that I could chaperone a school field trip for Kyle’s class. Kyle is such a sweet boy and it is truly a pleasure to be around him. It is an extra pleasure to have the chance to see him with his friends. I borrowed Braydon’s minivan so that I could take six kids in my car! (I sure do hate all that the dang minivan represents, but I sure do love what the minivan can do!)

We went to an Indian Market about 45 minutes from the school. I thoroughly enjoyed the entire field trip, including the car trips to-and-from, and especially listening to those six kids in the backseat. I am so grateful for these glimpses into the lives of my kids. In that day I could see what a good friend Kyle is to his friends, and it made me so very proud of my boy.

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Meera has been doing serious time on the Turning-5-Years-Old Birthday Party Circuit in recent weeks. She’s gone to half a dozen birthday parties just since Christmas. Braydon has been putting in his time on the Socializing-With-Meera’s-Friends’-Parents Circuit. He’s taken her to every single one of those parties, and has done it well.

The birthday parties of middle-upper and upper-class little kids really needs to be the topic of serious sociological scrutiny. I really hope that someone out there is doing their dissertation on this because it is just chock full of stuff to be analyzed. Lucky for us all, I am not doing that research. It is better left to Braydon to represent us on that party circuit. (Speaking of sociology… and things that are better left un-analyzed by me… note that Meera’s favorite color, by far, is still pink pink pink pink pink.)

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While Meera and Braydon have been on the Birthday Party Circuit, the boys and I have been left to our own devices. Which has meant for some very nice mother-son time for us. One of K & O’s favorite outings is to go out for hibachi lunch at Kome. Owen eats his weight in teriyaki salmon. Kyle gets the steak.

They laugh hysterically at all the jokes, and ooooh and aaaaah at all the tricks, of the hibachi chefs. The hibachi performance just never gets old for these two bambinos. The luxury of being out with just the two of them is such a gift to me. When it is just the three of us I can thoroughly enjoy, and appreciate, the fun and soulful boys that they are. These two drive me absolutely nuts — and I often feel like they are pushing me to the brink of sanity — but there is nothing in the world I love and appreciate more than them. And there is nothing I’d rather do than be on an outing with K & O, watching them enjoy life to the max. And enjoy life to the max they do. They excel at that.

Over the past three weeks, we’ve posted a lot on the topics of downsizing and moving to campus. I feel like we’ve barely scraped the surface of it! But we’re ready to move on. So, that concludes our thoughts at the 6-Months-In mark! Now… onward!

Scroll down for new posts!

Over the next several posts, Braydon and I are going to be trying to express some of our thoughts and feelings about the big move that we made six months ago. We really shifted our life in a drastic way, and it has been an incredibly interesting journey. At this — our six months in mark — we are going to try to write a bit about what this experience has been like for us so far.

So, check in for posts in the coming days! And if you have specific questions about this experience (either our radical downsizing from a big home to a tiny apartment, or our change in lifestyle from our prior “normal” life to living on campus as a family of five), comment here. We’ll try to answer as many questions as we can.

{by Heather}

Q: What do your faculty peers ask you about, Heather? What do they think of your living arrangements?

A: Honestly, I’m not entirely sure. I can tell you what they say to my face, can only guess what they say behind my back, and can only imagine what they think in their own heads. Here’s what they say to my face — about 80% of them look at me and tell me, point blank, that they think I’m absolutely crazy and that they (and/or their spouse) “wouldn’t move onto campus even if somebody paid them a million bucks.” In other words, they think I (and/or Braydon and me) are raging lunatics and they would not touch this experience with a ten foot poll. You wouldn’t even believe some of the things people have said, right to my face, along these lines. My perspective on this is that at a place like Lehigh (a research university with a 2:2 teaching load and relatively high expectations/demands for scholarship), most professors, I think, don’t really want a lot of interaction with their students outside of class and/or the lab and/or their office hours. Most professors, I think, feel overwhelmed with how much they already have to accomplish, with the pressures they are under, and with the expectations for them to do “service.” The last thing they want is to do more non-scholarly work. The scholarly work, alone, requires much more time/energy/attention than most full time jobs. The rest (the teaching, the service) feels like two or three other full time jobs layered on top of the first (and foremost) one. So, they see what I’m doing and probably think I’m absolutely absurd for taking it on. Thus, I can only imagine what they say behind my back… perhaps insinuations that I’m not “serious enough” about my scholarship (their logic: ‘who in their right mind would do what I’m doing if they were “serious”/hard-core about their scholarship?’)… perhaps they discuss how I’m sabotaging my career and my chances at ever getting Full Professor (I have tenure, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2007, but will be expected to get serious about going up for Full Professor in the not-too-distant-future)… perhaps they gossip about whatever would provoke Braydon and me to do this (OMG! Are they bankrupt?! OMG! What happened that would lead them to this?! OMG! What’s the real story as to why they’d be doing this? because they can’t possibly be doing it truly by choice, as they claim to be!?!). I think the bottom line is that for many, it is hard to believe we’d do this by choice, voluntarily, of our own free will. If we were doing it because something absolutely horrible happened to us (Braydon lost his job and we had to foreclose on our house, declare bankruptcy, etc…) then, maybe, they’d just be able to feel sorry for us. But as it stands, I think it is just hard for people to wrap their minds around why on earth we’d so dramatically downsize and move onto campus. On the other hand, about 20% of my faculty peers seem to really ‘get it.’ They immediately understand the positive ramifications for work, home, and self. I’d say this is especially true for younger women, particularly younger women with young children. And about 5-10% of them will often go so far as to ask me if Lehigh plans to expand the Residential Fellows Program, and will tell me overtly that if they could convince their spouses to do it, they’d jump at the opportunity. They ‘get’ the positives (the much more seamless and balanced work-home lifestyle, the ability to put the kids to bed then go out to a campus event, the luxury of being a 5-minute walk from your office, etc.). And there are definitely professors, like me, who — even at a school like Lehigh — truly enjoy students and would really like to find more ways to connect and engage with them outside the purely academic realm. So, there you have it… in a nutshell (I could talk for hours and hours about this question).

Q: Do you guys have a timetable of how long you’ll live at LU?

A: Yes. We have committed to two years, renewable for longer if we choose to stay after Year 2. Right now, we’re trying to get through Year 1. In September we’ll begin discussing the sustainability (or lack thereof) and potential future of this situation. I’m guessing we’ll stay for at least three years, but we shall have to see what happens.

Q: I’d be interested to hear how your cooking/meal times have changed. How much do you guys still cook in the scaled down kitchen verses eating on campus?

A: Breakfast and lunch have not changed for us at all. We eat at home for breakfast everyday. During the week we pack lunches for the kids’ school days. Braydon I do a combination of packed lunches and — mostly — working lunch meetings (I have lunch meetings at least 2-3 days/week, if not more). Weekend lunches are sort of just catch-as-catch can, and always have been like that for us. Dinners are really the main thing that have changed. We now eat dinner in the dining hall 1-2 times/week. We get take-out or eat out as a family about once a week. We have leftovers or something super simple (something like macaroni and cheese or tortellini and pesto for the kids, something like sandwiches or salads for Braydon and I) about once a week. And we eat a real full-blown homemade sit-down dinner 3-4 nights a week. I used to cook a full-blown homemade sit-down dinner at least 5 nights/week. So, that has changed a bit. Even though it isn’t a huge dramatic change, it feels very big for me. It has been a huge relief for me and has made my cooking-dinner-burden feel so much lighter. It feels like a weight off. Also, with a much smaller (TINY!) kitchen, I do feel limited. I don’t go quite as crazy as I often used to where dinner menus are concerned. This has been in part good, and in part bad, for me. I like having less pressure on myself to make grand meals. But I don’t like the lack of inspiration; I feel less inspired to be creative and try new recipes, etc.; It just isn’t as easy to whip up something fabulous. My tried-and-true dinners that my family loves are in full rotation. I still make the things they enjoy most, but often the meals are scaled down a bit. Our dinners at home are a bit more simple, but we are still eating very, very well. I am hoping to start back to my “Food Friday” posts on the blog soon. I miss that part of blogging a lot and am feeling ready to get back to that. (Photos below– top: Meera makes banana bread / bottom: our kids still eat a ton of fresh fruit and veggies daily.)

Q: Was it difficult to make the switch from LOTS of stuff to the necessities? What was it like to adopt such a new mindset? How did you decide what to keep?

A: It was difficult to make the decision to switch from LOTS of stuff to the necessities. That was years in the making for us. We had been pondering it for a long while, but we started thinking and talking very seriously about it in summer 2007, after getting home from the best trip of our lives and having stayed in a tiny simple bare-bones villa (the trip was to Virgin Gorda with Kyle and Owen when they were three years old; this was before Meera was born). It then took us four years of intensely deep (and ridiculously repetitive!) conversations and soul-searching (individually, and as a couple), before we were able to fully make the decision in a concrete way. All of that was very difficult for us. But then the rest came super easy. It was like once we had gone there in our minds, it was very easy to go there in a pragmatic way. It took a full year of process to actually do it (the sorting and ditching and giving away took a full 12 months). But we had — as you say in the question — “adopted the new mindset,” and it felt painless, good, cleansing, cathartic, and right. We decided what to get rid of and what to keep by simply just doing it. No way around it, over it, or under it: we just had to decide. When there are millions of decisions to be made, and a deadline looming, you simply cannot linger on very many of them. I did the huge bulk of it, and there were a couple of months there when I felt like I was making — literally — about 1,000 decisions a day (keep with us? save in storage? ditch? give? give to whom?). It was grueling, but not difficult. There were many moments (and even whole stretches of time) when it felt (and still does feel, even now) liberating, freeing, and sometimes almost ecstatic. I have felt all along, and continue to feel, that it was — for us and for our three kids — absolutely the right thing to do. I can’t explain it more than to say that I feel very much that what we are doing right now is exactly the right thing for us, and just what we are supposed to be doing. That is a really good feeling. Especially because for so many years we had a nagging feeling that we weren’t doing what we were supposed to be doing. Oh, and by the way— now that it has been six months, we’ve fully adjusted to this new lifestyle– so much so that, actually, I now (in the past month or so), often feel overwhelmed with how much we have. I look around and think of how excessive it is, and how we have so very much more than we need (or even want). Crazy! Once you get started on this road, it is a pretty incredible journey. I highly, highly recommend it!!!

{By Braydon}

Some of the recent questions that came in just needed to be answered. Thank you for asking (you know who you are)!

Q: Do you see changes in the munchkins that you attribute to exposure to more adults/college age young adults?

A: Since they are evolving and growing so rapidly, it’s really hard to know what the influences are. They are having a ton of interaction with students all the time, so there must be an influence. Wait – I think the influence is on the students!  

We tend to say that the Lehigh students have really “stepped up to the plate”, and they really have.  At the same time, our kids have too. They have begun to get a good handle on social interaction and social boundaries in a way that we didn’t have before. Even in their extreme social-ways, they don’t run up to everyone they see to interact, whereas they did before. They are more cognizant of their interactions and the limitations of what is appropriate.

Similarly, they have become ultra-aware of how much the students work/study. When we first came on campus we thought there was going to be a lot more hanging out, down time and partying, but we are constantly struck by how much Lehigh students study and work (academically). So much in fact, that when asking students if they want to do something (play basketball, watch a movie, hang out, whatever), they now ask first if they have to study or if they have time.

At the same time, they seem to be more free to be kids. Maybe because Heather and I are clearly so much older than the students (how was it that 40 became old???), and they are clearly so much younger than the students, but whatever it is, there is no one-upmanship on who is older, or cooler or anything. Which I think is very freeing.

One of the many times K & O get some bball on with our neighbors.

Q: One “management” area I’ve been watching for is an explanation of how you dealt with your photographs. Are they on DVDs, on a hard-drive, in boxes, with back-ups elsewhere? Did you reduce your collection as well before you packed, given the transitory nature of moving and storing for periods of time?

A: After 2002, we went fully digital with all our photography, and we have a pretty robust backup system for all our 100,000 digital images (we could do better digital house-cleaning I suppose!). However, before 2002, we had all normal photos, in boxes, in albums and in their original paper-1-hour-development sleeves, and we had to make some pretty tough decisions when we moved. We kept all our wedding photos and some key sentimental photos, but we tossed – literally – hundreds of photos.  We felt it wasn’t worth scanning and archiving them – often we found we didn’t even know what they were photos of – so why bother even archiving them?  Of the ones we kept, some wound up in our storage unit in a couple boxes of memorabilia, some (like our wedding photos) came with us in the apartment. We didn’t really become massive photographers until we had kids…which I suspect is pretty typical.

Over the years I have spent a ton of time on our technical setup (which in recent years has finally become far more simple), and if there is interest, I’ll outline that in a separate post.

The Lehigh “sculpture garden”. This photo just needed a little artistic help.

Q. I was just wondering if you would be writing any more about how you helped the kids come to terms with the idea of letting Quinn and Hudson go prior to the move? Given how you described it, “We know it was the right decision for the CATS, but WE miss them a lot” did you feel there were parallels to adoption and if so, did that impact how you discussed it with your bambinos both at the time and now?

A. I am sure it will keep coming up on the blog as we continue to figure things out. And lately I’ve noticed quite a bit of discussion of wanting pets (and interestingly, not just from the kids, so I am not sure what that foretells!).  When we originally started talking about it with the kids, I don’t think we really drew any lines to adoption, but we were very worried about how they would take it that the cats were going to take an “extended vacation” in NH.

Amazingly, they all handled it really well. I don’t know if it’s their general ability to just roll with things or what, but they have not really had much difficulty.

Tangentially, for the kids whole life we’ve noticed that when we get in the car for a road trip, they are the most settled of almost any time. I think it’s that they just happy we are all together, noone is going anywhere without everyone else and they don’t have to worry about separation. I believe that for these three, that as long as they have their brother, sister and parents, then anything else is pretty much a non-issue.

Little miss with Quinn at the lake this summer. Of all of us, she misses the kittens the most, but she’s alright.

Q. Just curious, are there any real downsides/things to be wary of when a family like yours (with young children) considers moving on campus? Do you have nightime fire drills? Or rowdy neighbour issues? Or other things to contend with/bear in mind?

A. As much as I tend to see only the upside, there are things that are less than ideal – especially with kids.  Fortunately they only do day-time, 2x/year fire-drills (which is not how I remember some late night drills in -10 degree weather in college), and the neighbors have been very quiet. But we do have to worry about smoking (and there are a variety of kinds of smoking of course) and drinking, although not so much where we live, but in generally on a campus.  The kids also must have their ID’s with them anytime they go outside (so they can get back in). We have also set the rules that they can’t go by themselves into anyone’s room alone. There is no banging on the ceiling or floor (anyone in an apartment can get that, but in a single family home you don’t realize how much stomping there is going on at any given moment).

Having just come off spring break I’ve noticed when students are here, there is quite a bit more (often unconscious)  pressure to be “on”. Keeping kids quiet and in-line is more on our minds. You can’t quite ever just totally let it “all hang out”, if you know what I mean.

The beautiful Lehigh stained glass in Linderman library.

This sign has been on our neighbors’ door for the past two weeks. It cracks me up every time I walk by it!

Here, too, are some other things you don’t see everyday on a college campus:

Lightsabers.

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Four-year-olds riding the campus shuttle bus.

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Professors playing with their kids — in sun or snow.

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Kids playing bball in fraternity parking lots.

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Anyone asleep at 10:50pm!

One of the things I’ve noticed most about living on campus is that it has totally reinvigorated me. Not that I was lifeless before (I wasn’t at all), but in the past six months I’ve felt a increased sense of youthfulness and enhanced mindfulness in my living that is definitely noticeable. It is almost like you cannot help but become more energetic and enthusiastic about life when you’re surrounded by young people who are just absolutely thriving. The experience of living on campus is fully immersive; we are literally immersed in the lifeworld of hundreds of young adults just overflowing with energy and enthusiasm. It is contagious.

On Saturday night Braydon and I went to an A Capella Invitational on campus (while the bambinos stayed home with a babysitter). We both have always loved college a cappella groups. There is something about a college a cappella group performance that makes it just impossible for me to not grin ear-to-ear the entire time I’m watching/listening. I know that in reality these kids’ lives are complex, confusing, and often very troubled (believe me, I know that now more than ever). But watching them on the stage, with nothing but a microphone and themselves and each other, just belting it out, usually with huge smiles on their faces… well, I’m just a sucker for that. It just seems like the best version of them. I can’t help but love it.

So, Braydon and I loved every second of that concert. When it was over my face hurt from smiling so hard. They did a grand finale where all four of Lehigh’s competitive a cappella groups got together for one big song. The song, and the entire scene of those kids all singing it together, has been stuck in my head and heart ever since. It was captivating. How can this sort of energy not be contagious?! This is one of the reasons that we just love living on campus!

All day I’ve known I was going to write this post tonight, and all day I’ve felt melancholy just knowing it was coming. In the spirit of blogging truthfulness, this post is my Top 10 List of Things I Miss. When we made our move, we did two things at once: radical downsizing and moving onto campus. Each is a lot. Both together is huge. While the pro’s definitely outweigh the con’s, and while I don’t regret our decision at all, and while I’ve never in my life felt more sure that what we’re doing is exactly what we’re supposed to be doing (that is the truth of it), like most things in life, it is a mixed bag — and there is real sadness for me around the things I miss. So, with a lump in my throat as I type this post, here’s my list~~~

TOP TEN THINGS I MISS (in order):

1. I miss my parents being able to live with us for relatively long stretches of time. This is the thing I miss the most. (It is hard not to cry typing this…) This is a raw-open-sore-topic for me that I’ve never blogged about… but, in a nutshell: for years I have desperately wished my parents would move in with us (or at least, move real nearby). Part of our move was spurred by the realization that it just was never going to happen. But having a big spacious guest room, an extra bathroom, and lots of space to spread out in, made them visiting super easy. They could stay over as long as they wanted, they could work out of our home, and it was super comfortable for all of us. We could say, “Come! Anytime! And stay as long as you want! The more you come, the better! The longer you stay, the better!” And it was 100% genuinely truthful. Now, it is not so easy. We can’t accommodate comfortable, long stays for them. And it is the thing that is hardest about our new living situation. It was something we knew would be part of the whole package– we went into it with our eyes wide open, and it was one of the trade-offs, but still, it is really painful for me. I especially miss my mom coming for 5, 7, or 10 day stretches. I deeply appreciated that part of our old house while we had it. And I deeply miss it now. It is still great when they come, but it isn’t the same. And I very much look forward to a time in the future when it can be like that again. Here is a picture of my Dad with the boys, at the “Star of Bethlehem” at the top of South Mountain (the mountain we live on at Lehigh), taken this fall shortly after our move:

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2. Our kitchen table. We got that table right after we got the boys home from Haiti (there is a funny story as to how we got it, but that will have to wait for some other post). In preparing for our move, I did not anticipate how much I’d miss the table. In fact, I’ve been kind of blind-sided by it. It is the only thing on this list that I hadn’t anticipated missing so deeply. I knew I’d miss it, but I thought it would be tolerable. And honestly, it is barely tolerable. Within 24 hours of our move, I knew I desperately missed that table. It was the center of our family life. We ate almost all of our family meals there, we did homework there, we colored and painted and carved pumpkins and decorated Easter eggs there. We talked there. It was the sun of our solar system. We have no space for a table like that now. It is in storage. And I think about it every single day. I am all choked up as I type this. I miss that table so much.

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3. Our swings. Ok, this one is a real tough one for me. For Kyle and Owen’s 2nd birthday we got them a swing set. Braydon and I have vivid memories of sitting in the yard with the boys, watching as the swing set people installed that swing set. It was an awesome swing set, and our kids loved it. Unlike so many kids, ours actually played on that swing set just about every single day of their lives — rain, snow, sleet, hail, winter, spring, summer, fall. Just as Meera began to love it, the boys were sort of starting to outgrow it. Meera was a baby/toddler and is now a 4-year-old-girl who has ALWAYS LOVED SWINGING. When we moved, Meera’s love affair with the swings was in full tilt. It kills me that we had to give that up. Tears welling up in my eyes just thinking about this. Gosh, I miss that swing for Meera (and the boys too), but gosh, I miss that swing for her. And so many good memories for Braydon and me of hours upon hours spent pushing our bambinos on those swings.

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4. The kitties. Those kitties were so loved by our bambinos. I already posted about this, so I won’t say much here. But, man do we miss those kitties. Meera especially. It breaks my heart to know how much she misses having a pet.

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5. My grill. For a long, long time (literally, since I was in middle school), I’ve grilled. I started grilling as a kid because my dad travelled a lot, so my mom would have me take over the grill when he was away. I never did any other cooking growing up (none at all), but the grill was my thing. Over the years, as I’ve come to love cooking, the grill has always remained my favorite form of culinary arts (!)…   I have always grilled a ton, and grilled year-round. My Weber gas grill at our old house — despite the fact that it was on its very last legs (falling apart at the seams) — was one of my most valued possessions. It killed me to give it away. I thought a lot about the fact that I’d have to sacrifice my grill in making this move, and I knew it would be a tough one for me. And it is. I so miss my grill.

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6. The huge kitchen. Well, if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a year, you know about my love affair with cooking. So, you can imagine how much I miss my old [big huge] kitchen. There was space for everything, and everything had space. It made cooking up a storm, being creative, and being spontaneous, super easy. I try to think of this phase of our life as a semi-break from hard-core cooking for me. I still cook a ton, I’m still a little bit creative, and still a tiny bit spontaneous, but it all dulls in comparison to what I was able to do at our old house in that huge kitchen. The new tiny kitchen has forced me to be creative in a whole new way. But man, oh man, do I miss the freedom of that big huge kitchen. Below: a random, but symbolic picture (the drawers I had designated for tupperware — separated by containers and lids — in our old kitchen). I never took that kitchen for granted. Not even for one day. And I sure do miss it now.

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7. The garage. Again, we knew how spoiled we were at our old house, and we knew how much we’d miss it. But, yes, we sure do miss it. Our cars are now parked a short walk away. It makes lugging groceries, etc. a huge annoyance (I use cart that I keep in my car trunk, but still…. ugh!). It also means having to deal with snow and ice removal. And getting wet when walking to the car when it is raining outside. I also miss having the space of the garage for the kids to play in– they could be out there (and they were, often) in the dark, in the snow, in the rain, etc. It was a covered space, ‘outside’ of the house, but still attached.

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8. A mailbox. It is just a little thing. And I try hard to not complain about all these little things… but I’m just being honest here: I miss having our own mailbox. We now have to get our mail at the campus post office. Which isn’t all bad. But I miss the kids running to the end of the driveway to get our mail, or greeting the FedEx driver as he pulled into our driveway, or being able to put something in the mail to be sent off (without a trip to the post office). It is something special about home-ownership: that whole mailbox thing. And I miss it.

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9. The trampoline. I had a love-hate relationship with that thing. I always had a low-level fear pulsing through me, worrying that somebody was going to get paralyzed from some sort of horrible trampoline accident. But at the same time, I loved sending the kids out to jump away their excess energy. And the kids loved the thing. So, I miss it mainly for them (Owen, in particular). They say they don’t really miss it much. But I miss it enough for all of them.

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10. The pool. Anyone who has ever owned an inground pool knows how much of a time and money sink they are. But wow, if you are a pool-loving person, there’s nothing more awesome than having your own beautiful pool right in your backyard. I loved that pool beyond belief. We haven’t had to face the reality of our pool loss yet (because it was starting to be fall when we sold the house), but I anticipate huge pains to come as pool season begins and we don’t have that swimming pool to luxuriate in. It is #10 on this list now, but I fully expect that come June it will move quickly to #1 on all five J-Ms lists of what we miss most.

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There is good and bad in everything. And I try hard to keep everything in perspective. But yes, there have been real sacrifices, negatives, and down-sides in making the decisions that we have.

I also want to point out that this list is perhaps most interesting because of what is not on it. I do not miss all our stuff; I do not miss our huge bedrooms; I do not miss our old neighborhood; I do not miss our privacy; I do not miss home-ownership; I do not miss the huge yard. I do not miss most of what we had. But I do miss some of it.

In addition to the things I’ve already blogged about (Dining Halls & Campus Events) there are many, many real benefits to living on campus as a family. Here are some:

A great big huge beautiful back yard. The adventures and explorations seem endless. So many trees to climb; so many green spaces to play in; a mega-size-“sandbox” right outside our front door (it is actually a sand volleyball court, which Kyle and Owen LOVE!, but according to Meera it is a sandbox); and so many extreme sports for the boys to attempt (!). The whole campus is our play-yard.

Babysitters. Oh my gosh, the babysitters! The excellent, trustworthy, great-role-model, highly qualified, energetic, enthusiastic, eager-to-babysit babysitters! Right at our fingertips! At any moment! Literally, hundreds of them. Thousands! It feels like a luxury to the Nth degree. (Note that Meera is in a Cinderella dress in two of the three photos below! Not a coincidence. This is typical attire for Miss Meera, and will surely be how most students remember her years from now.)

Walking paths. We’ve always been an active family. But now it is so easy. So many walking paths within such close proximity. Lehigh’s campus is huge. We could walk for days and still not cover all the walking opportunities that exist.

Mountain biking. Right outside our door is South Mountain, which is part of Lehigh’s property, and which is covered with mountain biking trails zig-zagging throughout the woods. Braydon has renewed his love for the sport, and has been teaching his boys to love it too.

Always something going on — outside and in. We are loving living in a thriving, youthful, active environment. Photos below (in order left-to-right/top-to-bottom)— K & O join in a soccer game that has picked up on the lawn outside our front door; Kyle is intrigued with the formulas on the white board in the lounge, and gets the student studying for his chemistry exam to take a few minutes to give him a crash course; after school one day the bambinos listen in as two students in our hall practice for a duet performance they’re preparing for an Open Mic Night.

The Cup. Meera would want me to include this (!)… A major win-win-plus-plus for Meera is that we now have the campus ice cream shop right nearby. The Cup is right next door to the campus post office in Campus Square. We go there at least once a week (if not several times a week) to get our mail. We get our mail, the kids (or, at least, Meera) gets ice cream, Braydon and I sometimes get coffee, and… in nicer weather… we sit outside and chat with whoever happens to be walking by (there are always students we know passing through). Meera, our little Ice Cream Lover, is loving this.

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And there is the regular life stuff too. Everything isn’t all new, of course, and much about our family life has stayed intact.

We still make dinner~

We still have the daily grind of the school-lunch-making to attend to (below: a Meera lunch)~

We still do homework~

We still do hair~

And we play games~

And we continue traditions. Like our monthly First Friday tradition. Below: two First Fridays with Mommy— Meera and I went for Thai food / Owen and I went for Japanese food~

We still hang out together at home (Meera still paints, almost daily)~

We still have pizza and a movie many Friday nights~

In so many ways, or life is different. And in so many ways, it is the same. That is our new life on campus.

Our friends the Petschs and the Womacks joined us today for an LU basketball game. So much fun!