For the First Time In My Lifetime!

My parents are moving! Okay it's not technically the first time, they moved to their house in NC when I was one. But that house is the only house I can remember ever living in.

I'm excited for them; it will be a new adventure for sure.

Utah does have beautiful mountains, as well as NO humidity (Yay for not sweating always), and my family will be much closer. =]

But before I get too excited about having Thanksgiving with my parents AND my older brother for the first time in 6 years, let us take a little trip down memory lane:

Or down LC Road.

If I had a dollar for every time I drove down this road. Whether for school, going to a friends house, Sonic, the bank, any other place to eat, and about 90 million other places along the road.

But the place I will miss the most is where I spent most of my life.
Where my parents chose to raise their family, an enriching and loving home, where I always felt safe and knew I was cared for.

Sorry this is the only picture I could find of the front of the house. Blame it on me not being able to find the cord for my external hard drive (where I'm certain to have better pictures).

A rather crappy back view of the house (again, my apologies).
That tree in front is one of our 2 cherry trees where we spent late spring afternoons up in the branches picking cherries for my mother to later make into delicious pies and other good things.
I remember one spring we picked 3 huge bowls of cherries, enough to last for weeks.

When I came back this last time this tree had grown significantly. Given this picture is about 2 years old, but thriving and beautiful nonetheless. Where those grape vines are, we used to have a garden, or attempted thereof. As pretty as deer are, they make trying to have a garden, a pain.
But when I was younger, I remember we would grow squash, carrots and tomatoes (probably more good things, but my memory isn't that good). When I was little, I love carrots so much that I would pull them out of the ground and eat them dirt and all. No wonder my nails are so strong.

I will never forget walking down to that stop sign every morning in middle school. My mother and I would huddle on the front porch steps at 6:30 in the morning, wrapped up in a blanket, waiting for my bus to come. Despite being half asleep, I liked that time with my mom.

And this swing set. Gosh I could tell hundreds of stories about it. In the winter we would eat the icicles off of it and slide down the slide only to try to repack the snow on it, just to knock it down again. Yes we were silly for trying, but we tried nonetheless.

Our yard, it was just big enough to be whatever we wanted it to be and to explore it over and over and over again. I'll miss waking up to 15+ deer in our backyard, and watching those beautiful creatures taking advantage of our crab apple trees and other fruit trees.

This is a view of the fort from our willow tree. Only one of the most beautiful trees I could ever imagine. My sister and I would climb this tree and pretend we were in a club called the shoestring club. Do you remember that Catherine? With the Brunstetter sisters.

A better view of the tree. Beautiful huh? It was the perfect tree. Just tall enough that you had to actually work to get into the tree, but didn't need a chair. It had branches that were somehow perfect for sitting in and reading books. Another thing we liked to do was have one person stand under the branches, while another person shook the branches. The one standing underneath would spin around as the pedals fell down and it felt like a blizzard of flower pedals. I promise it was more magical than it sounds.

We used to have a tire swing on there, that we would spin around on until we made our friends sick, or everyone but me sick. I had a thing for speed even at a young age. If my skin didn't feel like it was being stretched, I wasn't going fast enough.

This hill was perfect for slip n' slide, sledding or rolling down. I am pretty sure there is a shoebox with a dead frog buried on that hill. That was the year that we got a horrible storm that flooded the bottom of the hill on our road.

But nonetheless, this house has been good to us. We even painted that fort once upon a time, with mud. I'm certain we were probably covered head to toe in NC's red clay, but we didn't care. We painted every last inch of that fort that we could reach. I am sure our mother was happy with us. But whether painting the fort, or it being our spaceship, ship, house, bakery, self catapult, library, secret hideout, magic lair, or whatever else we wanted it to be, it was good to us, and I will not forget it.

I could go on and on about the memories of the house itself. Our barbie/playroom, that old kitchen set, eating dog food/ants, Aaron screaming "choo choo" around the house, family scripture and prayer, all our fascinating missionary dinners, sliding around in our socks, camping out in the foyer, sliding down the banisters and much much more. I'll never forget that house. I'll always remember it fondly.

I hope you take time to think about the good times you've had wherever you have lived and appreciate them. A house isn't a home unless it is a place you make memories with your family and loved ones. A home is where your heart is, where the people you love are, and where you choose to make your own. At the end of the day, your home may be far or near, but the memories you had there will always be with you.

I know I won't forget, I hope you don't either. But with a new move, brings new adventures and new memories and I can't wait to get started!

Don't forget.
Meg