Hello September!

September has happened upon us once again! I love September! It's always been a special month! I mean... it's my birthday month, of course! But more than that it's the birthday month of a good portion of the people who've been most precious to me my whole life. 

My childhood best friend and I happened to share the EXACT same birthday day and we were blessed to spend many birthdays celebrating together. Even last year we were able to start our birthday getting together for CJ's Bagels in Ankeny. 

Pearl's birthday is a week after mine and Kit's is a week after hers...and my bestfriend's little brother (Or little brother's best friend) also has a birthday just a few day's after Kit's. So... September always starts the celebration of life that makes my heart happy. 

Since college I've added a few more special months to my list of LETS-CELEBRATE-BECAUSE-SOMEONE'S-LIFE-HAPPENED-AND-I-AM-BLESSED-BY-THEM!!!! (You'll get your own post in February and April ;) ) 

But... September. 

As I alluded to in previous posts, this past weekend was perfect. Nighttime geocaching, endzone seating at the Iowa Football game, nerf dart battles, bonfires with wax bomb explosions, friend chats, cemeteries, church, Jesus, hugs... It was everything I needed. Plus! I came home to 8 of my siblings and a GIANT thunderstorm... plus Abe! (Abe is one of the most classic human beings to walk the earth. Someday I'll have to make a whole post just for Abe.) 

As I was driving down Highway 20 just 40miles short of being home, the radio stations stopped playing musics and played warning after warning about the hail coming out of the giant storm that had 70mph winds and that anyone in a vehicle should seek shelter immediately. I was driving right into that giant storm and decided I'd rather get home and park under a tree than try to find some shelter and wait it out. Plus!!! My family LOVES storms. Especially ones that come out of the South West. 

I imagined them all sitting together on our front steps huddled up against the wind and enjoying the lightning and incoming rainwall. Which motivated me to get home even more. 

So I continued quickly towards the storm hoping that I would be able to beat it home. This may have caused the heaviness of my foot (Which I'm told is made of lead) to increase slightly... But with all the repairs I've had to make on my car already at this point... I wasn't about to take any hail damage. 

 Just as I had imagined, that whole family was out on the steps watching the furry roll in. They were cheering for me as I grabbed my bags out of the car a few seconds before all rain and heck broke loose. It happened that the storm was just on top of us when I got myself to the front door and the thunder was so loud and beautiful and everything exciting. 

We went into the house as the rain wall arrived and to my great delight, a large pot of hot tomato soup was stewing on the stove. My older brother quickly offered to make me a grilled cheese sandwich and make sure I was fed before we all went to watch a movie together on the couch. 

Part-way through the movie we noticed our rooms were starting to light up with a yellow glow as the storm passed over and the most golden sunset of all golden hour sunsets broke through the clouds. The movie was quickly put on pause as we all raced out to see what the Lord was doing. 

What we saw to the West was absolutely breathtaking. 

And to the East, looking back at home.. there was the most beautiful full rainbow ever. 

We ran around taking pictures like crazy until the sun finished setting and then we went back to our movie. It was perfect. It was good to be home. 

It *is* good to be home. Today is office day. It's a little chilly but I intend to explore this little town today. There's a farmer's market this afternoon... and I've noticed little trinket shops and such. I really enjoy exploring things WITH people... but I'm learning to be able to do things by myself. There are some things I'm not brave enough for... but some things I can handle. Like... walking around this little town by myself. Not that I think it's unsafe or anything... more that it's more boring without people. 

Soon I will venture out, though. Who knows when I shall venture back.