Moving on

Mel and I, we like where we've been living. It's been fun. Not "a Saturday at Six Flags where there's no lines and you can ride every ride as many times as you want" kind of fun, but more like a "opening up a pack of baseball cards and out of the 20 of them inside the pack 19 of them are worthless but one of them is a Mike Trout rookie card." kind of fun. Did that even make sense? No? Okay.

Anyway, somewhere along the line we had decided we would like to move out of our house before Maddie is elementary school age. It's not that the area is terrrrrrrrible, and no offense to any educators in the Arlington school district because I'm very certain you all do a fabulous job molding the minds of the youth of America. But, we really wanted to move to an area with better schools.

Then we heard about what we could potentially get for selling, and decided to strike while the preverbal iron was hot. And that's where we are today. We close on this house, the first house we've ever lived in, on Monday. We're moving out of here sometime next week.

It hasn't been without its fair share of stress and drama and all that comes with the territory of selling a house. Getting a brand new roof, among other things, has a tendency to do that to a person. But we know that a house is simply a house, and it doesn't make a difference if it's your first, your last, or anywhere in-between. "Home is where the heart is" and all that jazz - the only true home should, and always will be, the one we all are anticipating getting to one day when we leave our earthly bodies behind.

But that being said, I've gotten pretty sentimental lately thinking about some of the memories we've made here, first and foremost with our two beautiful daughters we brought home from the hospital.

(Sidenote: Good Lord we both look tired in this picture.)

(Another sidenote: Sorry for you being completely blinded in this pic, Maddie.)

We didn't get any pics taken outside of the house when Norah was brought home, but I remember the days in complete contrast to one another. A grey, overcast day thanks to a cold front blowing through the day before on the day Maddie came home, and a bright, sunny and warm early afternoon when Norah got here.

Other things/moments that I will miss about our house:

- Having easy access to the park. A quick 5 minute stroll through our neighborhood would spit us out inside the park right on the trail. It also caused a plethora of wildlife to migrate into our neighborhood from time to time, including but not limited to turtles, raccoons, possums, armadillo, turkeys, bobcats, and coyotes. None of our dogs were ever maimed by any of these things, thank goodness, although Lacy did try to eat a grasshopper once.

- Having easy access to the Ballpark. Leaving games after the final out (which we don't really get to do anymore anyway) and making it home 10 minutes later. And Sunday afternoon nap time when there's a home game just won't be the same.

While we're on the subject of the great game (I told you we like baseball in this family, didn't I. Well we do.) October 27th, 2011. I get nauseous just bringing up that date and may have just thrown up a little inside my mouth. Mel wasn't here for that game because she was in St. Louis at the scene of the crime (and is now subsequently scarred for life). I sat in a dark living room after the conclusion of that game, the warming glow of the television long since ceased, and pondered my existence. Not exactly one of the greatest moments to have ever occurred inside these walls.

Moving on.

- I will miss the quiet times. Obviously those are few and far between now. But in the sporadic occasions when it does happen on a Saturday when Mel's at work and both girls are asleep, and I don't feel like watching anything on TV, one of my favorite things to do is Keurig up some coffee, fire up Spotify (usually some kind of Neoclassical new-age, post-rock, minimal music like Balmorhea, Sigur Rós, or something like that), and relax on the couch by the window in our living room with nothing across the street except a big open field of park land. Just me and the planes taking off and landing not very far away.

- I will miss the aforementioned big, open field across the street from our house. It wasn't really great and usually got all filled up with weeds until the city came every once in a while and mowed it all over, so I'm sure that completely wrecked people with allergies. But it was fun because it was just that - a big open field that we would stare out at from our driveway, and not another house. I'm not sure how much getting used to that will take. 

- I will miss our front porch with its ample space for two rocking chairs, which admittedly I wish I had spent more time just sitting in watching it rain, hail, sleet, snow.......anything. 

I could go on and on about this, and honestly things would be a lot tougher if we were moving somewhere much further away. Out of state or something. But we'll still be in the area somewhere, which makes things a little easier. But it's hard to not look back on this place we've lived in even if it's just been for a short amount of time and get sentimental about it. 

We'll miss you, Hinsdale Drive.