A Fond Farewell

On Friday, we signed all the papers for our old house & the new family moved in yesterday.
Good-bye, old house. I can't believe you are no longer my home.

I know when I last posted on Wednesday, things were still uncertain with our house closing, but prayers were answered & everything worked out!

We close on our new house in a few days & I am SO relieved, excited & thankful.

We took the girls by our old house late Friday afternoon (after we signed the closing papers) to say goodbye to our old neighbors & say one final farewell to the house.

I have to admit, it was emotional for me saying good-bye to that house.

We have really amazing neighbors that I will miss.
(I have written about our neighbors here and here.)

And that house holds some pretty amazing memories for Kevin & I.

Here is the camellia plant that I planted after my 2nd miscarriage in fall of 2005.
Whenever it blossomed, it was a reminder of our loss, but gave me hope. I will miss that plant & its beautiful flowers that came around every Spring.

This house was where we brought both of our girls home from the hospital.
Bringing Kate home - January 2007

And, Claire:
Arriving home with Claire - September 2008

One final picture of the girls on the front step:
I can't tell you how many pictures I have taken of them on our front step...Easter, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Halloween, etc. Almost every special occasion or holiday, I took a picture of them on this front step.

We let the girls run around the empty house one last time.
Kate ran around saying "good-bye" to each room.
"Good-bye old room!"
Claire looking concerned that the house was empty:
After we said good bye to the house, we said good-bye to our favorite neighbors.
Chris lived to the left of us. He is one of the most generous people I know.
Chris (also known as Chris Claus) is a wine distributor, (but doesn't like wine!) lucky for us!
Every week or two, we would open up our front door & find a bottle or 2 of wine on our front porch. We will miss having Chris as a neighbor, but he said he will still deliver us wine :)

On the right of our house, lived Brian & Gloria.
Brian & Gloria are the most Patriotic, Conservative & All Around American people that I have EVER met! They love America & they love politics! They would always invite us to their political fundraisers & tea parties (we never went). They are just the sweetest neighbors ever & just today Gloria called me because she is getting a new piano & wants to give me her old piano (a Baby Grand) so that the girls can learn to play piano on it!

Our neighbor across the street was Jim (and his son Dave)
Jim was also a great neighbor because he has a wealth of information.
When Kevin was rebuilding our backyard fence 4 summers ago, Jim is the one who came over & taught Kevin how to do it. They got the fence built in record time, thanks to Jim. Whenever we needed a laugh, we could count on Jim. Jim & I are both VERY sarcastic & we would always banter back & forth from across the street. I coached his oldest daughter in soccer 6 years ago & his son was in my math class 5 years ago.

Our final family picture in front of our house:
This is the house that we bought as a married couple....
but 5.5 years later, we sold it as a family of four (plus a dog)

It is bittersweet...It is sad to say farewell to this wonderful house where we made so many memories but we look forward to & anticipate saying hello to our new house where many more memories are going to be made!