Different but Good

It has been a little over a month now since we left Texas.  We're fairly settled in getting back to somewhat of a schedule.  While I was driving around the other day running errands I was thinking about the differences between Texas (big city life) and Idaho (down home country, for the most part).  One of the first things that I'm still adjusting to is the fact that everyone I go to church with lives somewhere in my neighborhood.  Our church building is about a mile away and there's probably another one a mile in the other direction.  Some stores are still convenient to get to, but we do not have the variety and excess of malls every 10 miles or so.  We do have restaurants around but "restaurant row" doesn't exist everywhere either.  We have a couple of movie theatres in the area, but I think only one has more than 20 theatre rooms.  While we live in a nice neighborhood which would appear to be suburbia, less than a mile away there are farms with horses or farmland springing up with crops all over.  A few local items around here are alfalfa (hay), sugar beets, mint, corn, wheat, mustard seed, sod, etc.  Not everybody drives fancy cars, some are probably older than the person driving it.  While we do have a few highways around, they're pretty straight and two-lane roads and you don't have to get on one to get some where.  I think my auto insurance is about half of what it was in Texas with more coverage, which I'm really excited about!  One of the biggest differences is that within 1 to 2 hrs you are in the mountains, ready to hike, camp, boat, float, relax, ski, just about whatever you'd like to do.  There are beautiful rivers, streams, lakes, hot springs, wildlife and so much more.  The temperature has been great too.  We've only seen a few days thus far around 90 degrees.

So, what's the point of all this you say?  While I did grow up around this area, so I may be a little partial, it's amazing how two places can be so totally different.  I've been away for about 16-17 years and things have changed since then, but I still find it to be a welcoming, relaxing place to be and raise a family.  I'm grateful that I've had the opportunity to experience different parts of the world, both to visit and live in.  I admit, there are some conveniences that I miss and friends that I miss too, but I'm glad to be back.  I'm grateful that Woody's employer was gracious enough to give us this opportunity and look forward to making this area our home for now (hopefully for a long time).  So come visit when you can!  We'll have lots of fun!