Begin Again...

The lack of snow on the distance mountains and the warm temps have confused the trees here in the West...

 It is worrisome when old apricot trees start to bloom as early as they did this year. It is also worrisome when there is no more snow or moisture forecasted when there hardly has been any, even if that means we have apricots.
But, the snow or lack of it, the blooms, along with the green grass, baby cows and chirping birds are far out of our control, Spring, as long as God is willing, is a time that everything begins again.
This spring has stirred several new beginnings for us, or the hints of new beginnings, looking at three universities for both Daughter #1 and #2, one undergraduate and one graduate...
First, we spent some time up in Salt Lake where the blossoms were in full bloom around the State Capitol...

 to look at the University of Utah...

 a beautiful old campus up in the foothills above the city, where pasture was allotted for milk cows, beginning as an institution in 1850, three years before the Salt Lake City Temple's ground breaking. While we were there the Mormon's most important site was surrounded in pink...

Then it was over to the East Slope of Colorado to check out the University of Colorado in Boulder where we enjoyed a tour of the campus, including the Old Main building...

where the entire university was housed when it opened in 1876, the same year as statehood.
Then it was up to Fort Collins where the flower beds were already full of blooming bulbs around the even older campus...

established when Colorado was just a territory, when six local farmers donated land.

Seeing my girls, and friends of my girls...

loving on the horses near Olde Town, Fort Collins, touring campuses and pondering where they want to live, apart from me, is joyous and heartbreaking as a mother. But for new things to begin, other things have to end.
Something that was in my, our control, and signals a very big new beginning for us, our church "called" a new pastor. To clear up confusion, I am actually a "gentile". We and a few dozen families started our church about twelve years ago, we called our first pastor about a decade ago, now we have asked another man to move his family across the country and settled here in the rural West with small children to start a new life and continue to build our church....yikes!
But he is willing and we, the congregation are willing, so if God is willing this will be a good, new beginning for all of us!