The Homecoming

August was a much-anticipated month for the Sparks family: the month of our first journey back to Oklahoma since our move to DC. I was looking forward to many things about the trip: seeing family and friends (first and foremost, of course), taking a break from the summer routine at home, watching our children interact with their grandparents, eating good food that I didn’t have to prepare, having a little extra help taking care of the kids, and revisiting Tulsa and our old neighborhood to see what was new and different since we left last December.

There was one thing I was a little nervous about, though, and it wasn’t the 20-hour drive. I wondered how I would feel being back there, whether it would make me regret leaving and grow wistful for the life we had. Would I be satisfied to leave Tulsa, home of our beloved historic home and neighborhood, many friends, loving church family, and newly bustling downtown, behind again?

Back to that 20-hour drive. This is how we broke it up. Both ways we stopped in Ohio, where we have two sets of friends. From Washington, on Saturday, August 5, we drove about seven hours to Columbus to stay with our friends Shane and Ellen. Shane is on staff at LifePoint Church (http://lifepointcolumbus.com/), and Harvey wanted to go there Sunday morning. So Saturday evening we had dinner at our friends’ house, followed by ice cream and playground time for the kids (they have two) in a nearby town. 

Ellen, Liv, Shane, and Lincoln

Sunday we went to church, went out for barbecue, headed back to the house to rest, and then left around 5 for the second leg of our trip: the overnighter.

Harvey likes to drive overnight. Well, it’s not so much that he likes doing it; he likes that the kids are quiet because they sleep most of the way. He drinks lots of soda and munches on snacks to stay awake. And it works pretty well for us. We stopped for dinner around 7, then showed the kids a movie in the car, and then it was bedtime. Car bedtime. They all cooperated. They woke up to use the restroom in the middle of the night when we stopped for gas, and then they went back to sleep. They woke up at 7, about half an hour away from our destination: Gamie and PaPa’s house in Oklahoma City.

We spent half of the first week with Harvey’s parents and half with mine. We spent a lot of time at the Sparkses’ outside in and around the pool and “hot pool,” as the kids call the hot tub. 

Daddy's water antics

Never happier than in the water

We saw grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins, as well as friends from high school and Norman. 

My friend Stephanie, who eons ago was in Harvey's youth group in Norman, now an elementary teacher at an inner-city OKC school

We got our nails done. We shopped. One day we made the long drive down to Blair, Oklahoma, to visit Ben and Tabitha’s former foster family, as we have tried to do every summer. We even stopped by their old elementary school (a little less security there than in DC Public), where we walked around and saw teachers and administrators who remembered the kids from four years ago.

We went to the big Oklahoma City amusement park Frontier City, where the kids braved all the rides and rollercoasters they were big enough to enjoy and they loved it. 

At the entrance to Frontier City

Opa and Oma enjoying the carousel with Judah (I think they'd enjoy just about anything with Judah)

Almost all smiles on the Pirate Ship (in spite of the look on her face, Tabitha loved it too)

We attended Harvey’s childhood church with his grandparents, who still go there. (I even got to sing an impromptu solo for the surviving members of the Adult-Something Sunday School class, and it was a big hit.) We attended the church in Norman where Harvey was a youth pastor for five years before we went to Mozambique. We ate at Shogun. We went to a 3-D movie. We bounced at an inflatable barn. We (Harvey and I) dined atop the Devon Tower. We had quite the time.

At Shogun Japanese Steakhouse to celebrate Gamie's birthday with Harvey's sister Summer and her boys

Watching Planes in 3-D

In Devon Tower in downtown OKC, about to board the elevator to Vast

View from the top

In between the first week and the final four days, we spent a whirlwind week in Tulsa. Our gracious friends and former neighbors Chas and Robin let us stay in their garage apartment, so we didn’t have to pay for a hotel, and we had our own little space, as well as access to their kitchen and laundry, thankfully. Harvey worked in the district congressional office in the CityPlex Towers near ORU, and I spent my days catching up with friends from church and the neighborhood, while my kids got to spend time with all their former playmates. 

On the trampoline with friends Gabe, Solomon, and Rorie. We love you!

Every evening we met different friends for dinner. I also had the privilege of attending my former Women on Mission meeting at Calvary and going to lunch with around ten of the lovely ladies, and our family went to Wednesday night prayer meeting, where our kids were honored with the inaugural “Calvary Kids” T-shirts. 

With the ladies of Calvary Women on Mission at Billy Ray's Catfish and BBQ (yum!)

Honorary "Calvary Kids" modeling the new T-shirts

With friends Bailey and Tyler at Guthrie Green

Mr. Rob and his wife Lisa took care of Judah in the Calvary nursery since she was an infant.

With BFFs Ellen and Allison

(Thanks to Robin, Heather, Juliette, Jenna, Angela, Michelle, Brianah, Sandy, Lisa, Alicia, Bailey, Shio, and our Calvary family for helping with the kids, sharing food and coffee, and spending time with us during our Tulsa stay!)

During our last few days in OKC, we saw a few more friends and hung out with family one last time. Goodbyes were not quite as tough as the ones we said back in January, perhaps because the initial shock of the move was behind us. We left Oklahoma on a Tuesday evening, arriving in Xenia, Ohio (just outside of Dayton), Wednesday morning to stay with our friends Aaron and Jessica and their two girls, whom we’ve visited several times and who came to stay with us in DC earlier this summer.

Our weary traveler after a long night of driving

We spent the day and night with them and headed back to Washington the next morning, where we shifted directly into back-to-school mode, with Parent Preview Thursday night, dentist appointments Friday, and the first day Monday, August 26.

So, was I heartbroken to leave Oklahoma? Am I ready to move back to Tulsa? DC doesn’t quite feel like home yet, but I think being away made me grow more fond of it in a “missing home” kind of way, and toward the end of our Oklahoma sojourn, I began to feel ready to get back and get started on the next chapter in DC life, including a new school for the kids. As I’ve thought about the visit, the juxtaposition between the two places leaves me with mixed emotions and allegiances. I enjoy the ease of driving and parking and getting around in OK, but the traffic and parking meters of DC have grown on me. (Early in the visit, I met a friend in OKC for breakfast, and one of my first thoughts was I wonder if the restaurant has parking? They did, of course, and it was free.) It’s nice and comfortable being back in a place where almost everyone looks and talks like me, but it’s ever-interesting and -stimulating living in a place with racial and ethnic diversity. The pace of life in Oklahoma seems calmer, and there’s not the constant pressure to be taking advantage of hundreds upon hundreds of cultural, educational, and political opportunities and offerings. But those opportunities and offerings make big-city life exciting and fun.

I think this trip taught me that I’m happy where I am right now. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be happy back in Oklahoma. I appreciated being there, and I appreciate being here now. Of course, life is not perfect here, and it was never perfect there (though I think sometimes we had it pretty close). And I’m not always content when I should be. But for now I’m good, and I’m looking forward to the days and months ahead in DC, as well as to Christmastime: our next visit hom— I mean, to good old OK.