As I sit down to write my blog, I'm struggling to find the right words to capture my thoughts today. There's such a feeling of peace, gratitude and overwhelming love for the people around me.

It's an amazing, hot, holiday weekend and I'm spending it with people I love in a place that is very special to me. It's the one place of real continuity that I've had in my life, and there are 43 years of memories that surround me here.

My aunt owns nine acres of land outside of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. Ever since I can remember, we've come out here to play and spend time together with my mom's side of the family.

It seems like it was just yesterday that I was a little girl in pigtails running around this backyard with my cousins, while my mom and aunts and uncles watched us play.

Now we are the parents and in some cases, grandparents, and our children and grandchildren are playing in this same backyard. In the blink of an eye, 43 years have gone by.

I walk around the property, across the section of lawn where I once got married, down to the pond to look at the path where we used to explore and pick blackberries, and then into the front yard where we've played so many family volleyball games.

Memories flash through my head:

• The old pickle-barrel hot tub that all of the cousins used to cram into and make overflow. In the winter, we'd run around the house in the snow and jump back into the hot tub, squealing when our feet burned from the heat after being in the cold.

• The countless hours we spent swimming in the pool, splashing and running in circles to turn it into a whirlpool. We'd swim until it got dark and cold out, and argue with our parents through chattering teeth when they said we should get out and dry off.

• Shooting pool in the basement on Christmas Eve - drinking soda and pretending to be "bartender" behind the bar when we were young, then years later enjoying our Tom and Jerry's as we played.

• Playing volleyball in the front yard until all hours of the night, sometimes turning on our car headlights or even bringing in heavy duty lights so we could still see the ball.

• The amazing nights around the campfire with s'mores and philosophical conversations, and more than once needing the Big Dipper to save us from a heated religious or political conversation.

• Giant bonfires down by the pond, with only a few minor burns (in spite of all of the gasoline used by the brave men in our family!).

We've been through so much in this place. People we loved have left us over the years, and their memories linger here too. Children have been born, and they've created new memories that warm our hearts. We've shared amazing conversations, plenty of dramatic moments, and every kind of weather imaginable.

We laugh, we love, we disagree, and we give too much of ourselves sometimes and don't always get back what we expect. But through it all, we know that no matter what happens, these experiences we've shared together have created a bond that will last forever.

I'm so grateful that I am in a place now where I can truly appreciate what these people and this place have meant to my life.

In the blink of an eye, the first phase of my life has gone by.

Think I'll try to blink slower for the second.