Day #15 Entitled: Deja Vu-esque

I wanted to put down some thoughts about our move here.  These thoughts will either be very poignant in 20 years, or a fleeting thought in 2.  Nevertheless, I have had a very interesting experience in our most recent move to the greater DC area. Don't worry, I will throw in random pictures here and there to keep it interesting. 
Let me start by saying that I have never lived anywhere longer than four years my whole life.  A fact that I don't begrudge.  Not to say that some moves haven't been difficult but I have been alright and things always turn out great in the end (except for maybe my school experience in Massachusetts, but I blame that entirely on puberty and a bad perm.) 
The last ten years however has made me tired.  The places we have lived, the experiences we have had in the Navy and the people we have known have been irreplaceable and I wouldn't have had it any other way.  The fact is, as a married woman/mother, I know no other way.  I actually begin to feel a little antsy after a couple of years.  Even with the places that I have really loved, I start to itch for a little change (that may be why we have four kids...what? we're not moving this year? Let's have a baby!...Actually, I have always been pregnant for a move or gotten pregnant within a couple of months of a move...I call that divine inspiration, not really "good planning", as it were.  But it's all worked out, right? I mean, I love all my girls so that's that...and no, I am not pregnant right now.  This move may be the exception to the "norm".)
Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, deja vu.  So my point is, I have always had a little bit of panic in the back of my mind about settling somewhere.  It seems so permanent (which it is, obviously.)  And yet in the past couple of years I have had a greater desire to settle, put down roots, and raise our girls somewhere solid and lasting.  They are amazingly adaptable and friendly and flexible.  But I want to give them the gift of long time friends, permanence and a bit more consistency in their surroundings.  However, given the fact that we have truly appreciated everywhere we have called home, how do we decide on where we want to hang up our spurs? The logical answer naturally, would be "wherever we find a job".  But what if we actually got to choose? How in the world does one go about making that decision?  I'll tell you.  You stay in tune with the spirit and Heavenly Father leads you there if you are listening.  For the first time in my adult life I feel like I am living somewhere that I could picture myself for a very long time.  A very long time.  It is a bizarre feeling of home and contentment.  I am optimistic that we could raise the kind of family that we want, right here where we are.  I mean, we might get kicked out of this house when the owners decide the same thing, but I mean the area.  I love it here, not just superficially.
The strangest part about all of this and the move here has been how "familiar" everything and everyone is.  Every single person I have met, whether through church or the girls' school, has had a familiar quality to them...almost like deja vu.  For the first couple of weeks it felt a little like the Truman Show....like at any moment I would find out that I died months ago and this is my afterlife full of people that I already knew.  OK, that is not really like Truman Show but I mean a place where everything in place is intentional and right.  It's like we arrived and with every move we make we are settling into a previously designed niche, prepared just for us.  The house, the neighborhood, the ward, the school, everything.  I can't tell you how many times I am standing and talking to someone and want to stop in the middle just to ask "Are you sure I don't know you from somewhere?"
So for what its worth, I like it here.  It feels oddly comfortable and nice and right. 

(Try to ignore Clark's amazing farmer's tan in this picture because I like it...the picture, that is.)