Well, it's done!

We've moved out entirely. Finally. I need to go get contracts signed for the renter next week and then she gets to clean and move in and get it ready to sell.

As we were leaving yesterday after we finished packing (finally), one of our neighbors stopped by. He is an older gentleman who grew up in the same town as my dad. He and his wife are just wonderful and I'm going to miss them a lot. But Kiddo is really going to miss him -- he always gives 5 to the kids at church, and he teased her every Sunday by calling her any and every name of different animals but the one she's actually named after. Yesterday, when he called her Bird and said, "You're my favorite girlfriend." ... she started bawling. I followed shortly thereafter. But today we finished moving everything out.

One of the newer neighbors whom I've never met came outside while our kids were playing today. My the family loaded the rest of the stuff in the van while we talked a bit. Their kids were so excited to see my kids out there, they HAD to come out. He volunteered to take a truckload over to DI for us. So we loaded up his truck with DI stuff, Virgil's van with trash (he took it to the dump), and the moving van with everything else.

As I did the final walk through today to make sure we had everything, I tried really hard to hold it together, but gut wrenching sobs still escaped me. I'm just glad I left the kids downstairs while I looked around!

I remember moving in with Kiddo and being so excited to have our own space. I remember sharing my first kiss with the husband on the couch in the living room (his friends decided they wanted the couch and came and got it today). I remember the fire the husband started on our balcony before we got married. I remember our wedding day and settling in as a family. I remember moving my office out of its room so his daughter could visit us there. And that's the last time we've seen her. I remember JapanBoy's visit with his family, dinners with my parents, date nights at home with the husband, bringing my babies home from the hospital ... the scary things, the fun things, the exciting things, the sad things ... I still have all of those memories, but it was really hard to leave today.

But I am looking forward to making new memories in our new place. Once I've unpacked a zillion boxes and purged more stuff.