Dear House,

Seven years ago, on the day before Thanksgiving, we pulled into your driveway and began our journey here.  I could not believe that you were mine.  Tomorrow, on the day before Thanksgiving, we will pull out of your driveway and end this journey.  And I am reminded that the things we think belong to us usually don't... at least not forever. 

 

It's been a good trip.  We built a life here, and I'm glad to take the memories with us.  Walking through you, I can see scenes from our life.  So many people we were glad to know.  So many happy moments.  I wouldn't even trade the difficult ones.  I know you're an inanimate object, but somehow you also feel like an old friend.  It is hard for me to look around and see a collection of empty rooms.  I have taken everything that wasn't nailed down, and let's face it, I took some stuff that was, as well.   

But I am leaving you one memory of us:

And the chalkboard.  I am leaving you the chalkboard, because I can't figure out how to get it off the wall:

I hope you will soon have new inhabitants that love you as much as we did.  I wonder if they will walk in, declare you the house of their dreams, and then begin to repaint and remodel.  I wonder if they will outgrow you.  If they do, I hope another family will come... and another... and another...  I hope more babies come home here and more children grow up here.  And I have asked God to bless you, from top to bottom, and to bless the people that live here in the days and years to come.

I have to stop writing now.  I wish I could stop crying.

Love,

L.

I Love My Life...

As I was headed down the road to take the kids to the Fantasy of Lights Parade, it hit me like a ton of bricks that we're in a really unique situation right now.  After years of being away from "home" and raising our kids with our own traditions (which I love), we are now in a place where we can also share with them the traditions we had growing up.  Who gets to do that?  Who gets the best of both worlds?  Apparently we do, and this has me feeling pretty blessed!

The Fantasy of Lights Parade is a special thing around our house, particularly because it was the first date Phil and I ever went on, some 19 years ago!  I met Phil's whole family that night.  We got stuck in traffic and finally detoured to Silverman's for Hot Chocolate, and I thought my Nana (who was waiting for me at home) was going to kill me for being so late!

Some things have changed over the years, 

but not how much I love

being out in the cold, at a parade, with this guy:

Over the years, we have made it out to the parade a handful of times.  We took Seth at 2 months old.  I took the kids in 2005, when I was working overnights at Target and commuting 2 1/2 hours.  You know, just crazy stuff like that!  But this year was the first time our whole family made it there together.  Well, OK...  let's be real.  Nothing is ever easy, and Phil had to work late, so we didn't really arrive together, but we did find each other...

Ready to Walk Downtown:

Now, I'm relatively good at scoping out good parade watching spots, so we managed to squeeze in between a couple of blankets that had surely been set out hours ahead of time, and the kids got a prime spot on the curb.  I'm also sort of... shall we say... thrify, but it my excitement to get downtown early, I forgot to feed the kids.  This resulted in an $18.00 trip to a hot dog vendor.  I probably should have thought this through a little bit better, because I left Seth, Grace, Caleb, and Miah to guard our spot and then Ian and I had to figure out how to carry 6 hot dogs and 6 lidless cups of hot chocolate between the two of us.  Let's just say a whole lot of hot dogs were stuffed in Ian's coat pockets, and we might have had a little bit of a spill...

My Little Hot Dog Man:

In the end, Grandma, Grandpa, and Daddy did find us.  Funny little aside, Grandma was calling us on her cell phone and didn't realize that she was standing, literally, right behind us...

 Oh!  There They Are:

And the parade was great!

Some of the Floats:

 

I thought the School Bus that had impaled

Santa's reindeer team was a little disturbing...

Oh, wait...  Maybe it's supposed to be a sleigh...

Someone in our family was super excited to see Santa:

 Uh...  It might not be who you think:

I think maybe the funniest part of the night was when Miah was doing the royalty wave at all of the people on the floats!  She also wanted to ride the horses and was very upset about being in her stroller.  When we got home and I was getting her to bed, later, she said, "I thought this was my parade!"  Oh, Queen Miah...

The walk back was an eventful one, since Grandma decided we should stroll through the streets, where the horses had just been... and the flat tires on the stroller didn't really help, either, but what is life without a little bit of comic relief?

Some more hot chocolate and pie at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and it was time to head home.

Good stuff.  Good life.  Good night!

L.

Unashamed...

... I am a Black Friday shopper.

As a previous small town, small business owner, I completely understand the desire to shop locally and support my neighbors.  As a very materialistic person who has been intentionally working my way toward a more minimalistic lifestyle, for years, I completely understand the importance of emphasizing the real meaning of Christmas... ya know, the birth of our Savior... over the number of packages crammed under the tree.  But here's the truth.  I like buying things for people, I believe in being a good steward of my resources, and I don't have an exorbitant amount of cash.  So, for years, I have shopped on Black Friday.
  
What I was never going to do was shopping on Thanksgiving.  And yet, when dinner had been consumed, and the game had finished up, and the kids were happily laying around Grandma and Grandpa's living room in pie induced semi-comatose bliss, it occurred to me that Phil and I could, indeed, slip away for a couple of hours, alone, and snag some deals.  And so we did.

It should be abundantly clear

that I love this more than Phil does,

but he's such a trooper, and we do have fun together:

 

So we walked into Wal-Mart for three items.  21 minutes after the clock struck 6:00, I was sitting in the van, in the parking lot, with two of them.  Phil had a little bit more trouble getting to the check-out lanes, so it took him about 40 minutes total.  It was the easiest holiday shopping trip ever as far as I'm concerned, and I even got to direct some brand new Black Friday shoppers and help them to get the items they were after.  Yeah, that might have been the control freak in me coming out, but it is kind of fun when you're walking to the end of the check out line and people are thanking you as you go past...

L.

PS  We also did a lot of on-line shopping, so our list had dwindled, considerably, before we ever left the house.  I would imagine it would have been a bit more hectic if we were vying for electronics, which we have done in the past...