Officially a Sioux Falls "West-sider"

Well it’s official….the papers have been signed, the keys have been exchanged, all of our belongings have been moved across town. We have temporarily left the world of home-ownership and are officially renters again. Weird.

Yesterday was a hard one. I woke up with a sinking feeling and for a majority of the morning I functioned on the verge of tears. Our new landlords seemed so excited to have us in their property, and I think they expected us to be excited as well. They don’t know our story...maybe then they would get that this isn’t our ideal, but rather a step in a “better” direction.

After lots of trips back and forth yesterday we finally got everything moved to the new place. I cannot believe how much STUFF we have accumulated in 4 years. Here’s what it took to move…

-One U-Haul to storage at Matt’s aunt and uncle’s house
-My mom’s full car back to Omaha
-2 U-Haul trips across Sioux Falls
-A full POD sitting in our driveway begging to be unpacked
-Matt’s Escape packed to capacity
-2 full loads in my truck (I hardly had room for the dogs on the last trip!)

As our items were slowly packed, there was one item that remained a constant in our house until the minute I walked out the door for the last time. A picture of Charlotte. It was the literally the very last thing out of the house, and I intend for it to be the first thing that goes up in the new place.

And speaking of that little angel, I did leave something of her's behind at the house.  The new buyers won't mind...I'm guessing that they won't even notice.  For the past three months I have delighted in seeing Charlotte's perfect little fingerprints on our sliding door to the deck.  I had to have been holding her when she made them because they are right at my eye level.  Most mommys are on a constant mission to clean up the sticky handprints that are an inevitable part of having kids, but in the days after we came home after Charlotte's funeral, it was things like that which I found myself clinging to.  I wash doggy slobber off of that glass constantly, but was never able to bring myself to wipe those prints away. 

Charlotte opened our eyes to what is truly important in this life…Family, friends, faith…and while “possessions” doesn’t fall anywhere near the top of that list of important things, it was still tough to leave that house behind. It was a great house and I will miss it. I can only hope that the buyers love it as much as we did and pray that they have endless happy memories there.

Thank you all for praying extra hard for us yesterday.  I hope that you all have a WONDERFUL Labor Day weekend.  Ours will be filled with lots of unpacking and of course a little Nebraska football!