a place to call home.

As I'm sure you gathered from the previous post, Blake and I are in San Diego!  We got here about a month ago and we are loving it.  We are living with Blake's parents for the time being and it has been so fun to be close to them.  We are loving this new little adventure that we are having but I just want to go back for a minute and finish up with our time in Provo.

As Blake and I packed up our house, I found I had a knot in my stomach, as everything brought back sweet memories of the year we lived in our very first home together.  When we moved into our apartment last August I never could have imagined how difficult it would be to leave.  It wasn't anything grand and in many ways it was far less than great.  For example, the stairs that led up to our apartment were tilting and looked like they were barely hanging on.  I had major fears that one day they would fall off and we would be trapped but they somehow stuck it out for us.  We never had a microwave plate...which led to many burnt or undercooked bags of popcorn, much to Blake's dismay.  Our carpet was once a nice (I use that term loosely here) bright shade of teal that over the years had been dulled to a nice shade of brown in many areas.  We spent hours cleaning that carpet only to find that even the brighter shade was still less than desirable.  The neighbors that lived below us were nice enough to let their kids scream most nights from ten until about midnight giving us a nice mind numbing way to go to sleep. All these things brought bits of grief to Blake and I at some time or another during our time living there but it only took about one week of living there before we grew accustomed to those things and we learned to find them endearing (except for the popcorn problem, which got more annoying every time), because they were OUR tilting steps, and it was OUR ugly teal carpet, and they were OUR obnoxious neighbors.

I truly grew to love that house because it provided us a place to be our own family unit for the first time.  It was the place that we spent a full week repainting every surface. It was the place where Blake and I spent hours and hours doing homework.  It was the place that I laid, on bed rest, counting contractions and dreaming of our sweet baby boy. It was there that Blake and I put up our first Christmas tree together.  It was there that we spent hours praying together that our baby would be safe, that we would succeed in school, that we would know which job we were supposed to take.  It was the place that we brought our perfect Knox home for the first time.  It was the place where I spent many, many hours and nights rocking my baby.  It was the place where Knox smiled for the first time, laughed for the first time, rolled for the first time, and sat for the first time.  It was the place that we went home to after exhausting days and we all cuddled up together and talked about everything that had happened.  It was the place that we called home.

As we packed up our stuff and I let a few tears fall, I realized it wasn't the place that I was sad to leave, it was the memories.  It had been our home for the hardest, and best year of my life and it was hard to let that go.  So, I let myself be sad for a little bit and then I toughened up and kept moving forward, but not before we took pictures of everything so that I could always remember the first home that held my heart.

We loaded everything into the truck and when the house was empty, Blake and I spent a few minutes alone walking through one last time.  We went into every room and then into Knox's room last and my heart was full.  It was there that I realized, that the location and the place doesn't matter, because wherever my boys are is my home.   I will learn to love our next home just as much because it's the people that make it feel special.

Moving here was hard for me at times leaving the only life I'd ever known in Utah, leaving my family, leaving my safe place, but I quickly became accustomed and now I feel just as at home here as I did in Utah.  I am so grateful for my sweet boys that make my life so full and so meaningful.  I know that as long as we always go together, I will always have a home.

And now for some pictures of our first little home:

Our room

 Kitchen

Living room

Our sweet little Knox's room