Looking Back

As much as we wanted to sell our house and get started building our new home, there is some sadness in leaving it. Though it wasn't the hubs and my first house, this was my children's first. Both came home from the hospital to it.

Two plus years after we bought our home, we welcomed our first child into it. I'll never forget bringing Cakes home. All the spring bulbs that we had planted in our yard were abloom. The sweet smell of hyacinths was thick in the air. Everything was fresh. New. The beginning of our life.

Cakes and I spent many hours feeding/watcing the fish in our backyard pond

Two and a half years later we brought our Bubby home. Though the details are a blur, I can tell you that any worry in my mind about Cakes being jealous of him was completely put to rest. She welcomed him with open arms, just as we all did. His sweet, laid back attitude brought such a lovely balance in our life. We were complete. We had our girl and our boy.


Big Sister and Little Brother

In the almost seven years that we lived in the house, we evolved from being a childless, carefree, married couple to a very happy family of four. We've also watched our one road neighborhood grow from a few houses to twenty-five or so. We welcomed and bid farewell to many neighbors. And we made several lasting (I hope) friendships. Those friendships were hard to leave. Good neighbors are a blessing and we were lucky enough to be blessed with several.

The hubs and I pre-kids

Family Picture 2010

We were particularly close with our next door neighbor, the A family. They are a family of four with two boys, W and E. W is going into second grade and E is entering first grade. E and Cakes are best buds! They spent a lot of time together, often several hours at a time, at least a couple times a week. Either he'd come over to play (and sometimes stayed for dinner), or Cakes and Bubby would go to their house. We would frequently go on walks and play out in the street as well. E even got to come with us for a special birthday play date to Chuck E. Cheese's. Moving away was hard and the kids have missed each other. But, since we are just around the corner, we are trying hard to get them together as often as possible.


Cakes, E-Dog, and Bubby

And then there's our across the street neighbors, Jonathan and Shelane. Actually, his name is Joseph, but I called him by the wrong name for about a year! Really. He never corrected me even though I gave him many opportunities to do it. I flat out asked him if his name was actually Joseph and he still denied it. I didn't confirm my suspicion that his name wasn't really Jonathan until we checked mail for him when he was of town once. He was embarrassed to correct me since I had been calling by the wrong name for so long. Boy, did I feel like an idiot! Funny part about it, the hubby sometimes still refers to him as Jonathan. Anyway, we became friends and spent a lot of time chatting outside.  Lucky guy found a great girl in Shelane, and we quickly took to her. She is probably the sweetest gal I know. The kids often recruited him and Shelane to go on walks with us...with their dogs. They have five dogs! And you though we were crazy with four! They were such good neighbors that they would let us borrow their lawn mower, a jar a mayo, and even let us use their truck to move. I told you. They are good people! We're keeping in touch. In fact, they kept our dogs when we went on vacation after we moved. And we'll be taking care of their dogs in a couple weeks.

Bubby with the Rat Pack

We have several other good neighbors that we will miss as well. Chris, his son, C, and their dog, Maggie. We always enjoyed chatting with them. And Maggie's kisses were the best. What a dog! Tony, our two houses down neighbor, and his two dogs. I've actually know him since I was in high school. We won't discuss how long ago that was. Tony was always great to chat with. He was always telling me how beautiful the kids and I are. Talk about an ego booster! Love him! Luckily, I'll still see him when I go grocery shopping. He's a manager where I shop. Oh, and Connie and her brother, Will and Alecia, Russ and Lorainne. All super nice people. We're going to miss them all!

One thing we are not going to miss is our yard. Don't get me wrong, we loved our yard. It was large, and pretty, and great for the kids, but we had too many flower beds to take care of. But I will miss the memories. Like the several trees that we planted that had special significance. One was a gift given to me when Cakes was born. Another was for Mother's Day, and yet another for one of my birthdays. The kids had a lot of fun in that yard. Luckily I have plenty pictures to look back on and remember fondly.

Bubby enjoying the back yard.

But we will create more memories in the new house, the new yard, and with new neighbors. The next chapter in our life will begin soon. In the meantime, we're working on some pretty special memories in the 'ol house on wheels.