Yesterday marked seven years since the Owls moved from São Paulo to Weston. Seven years since my brother and his family met us at the airport with a big sign and Red Sox caps, then my parents drove us “home” to an empty house that would wait three months for furniture (if you haven’t experienced a South American customs strike, don’t). Seven years to the day since one of the owlets, while dancing on the no-furniture-yet wooden floors, fell on his elbow and broke it. And we drove off, without knowing a pediatrician, without knowing the streets, without even a car (yeah, okay it was a rental) to Boston Children’s Hospital in Boston where my son spent his first night in the US. We are now frequent-visitor card carriers to Boston Children’s where the orthopedic department will shortly be able to name a wing for us just on co-pays.

So while our seven years here started not as we envisioned, and certainly none of the following years followed quite as we thought, I am grateful that we would up in Weston. Grateful for a town that has many caring volunteers doing everything from watering-trough gardens, to affordable housing strategy, to trash pick-up to coaching youth sports to school oversight. If you have lived here your whole life, trust me when I tell you that Weston is unique. Unique beauty, unique people, and a level of caring about itself as a town that is incomparable in my experience (and I have lived in a lot of places, readers).

I am grateful for my friends here–those who bake cupcakes for my then- 2nd-grade twins and bring them to the bus stop, who take care of my crazy dog when I leave for weekends and those who send me funny notes about blog posts or community events and those who run with me every other morning in the early light. I am grateful too for the little interactions–the meetings at the mailbox, the moments over a Bros. produce display, and always and forever, the soccer and baseball sidelines. You’re not as badass as you think, Weston; you can actually be quite nice. And endlessly amusing.

I am not sure we’ll be here seven years from now given Mr. Owl and my predilection for moving around, but then again, things never go quite as planned. My Sunday gratitude: living here and now in Weston.