on leaving our home

yesterday, following one embarrassing breakdown (mine) and several desperate attempts (joey's) at easing an incredibly emotional and semi-disappointing move from our home, joey and i said goodbye for the last time to our rental on hague. we lived there for two years exactly. i remember so clearly the search for that house in june 2011. i was driving home from my last day of teaching for the year, excited for a weekend of house hunting with joey when he found out he was being activated to help south dakota prepare for what was to be one of the most memorable floods in recent sd history. so at the last minute, my mom and cousin agreed to drive up with me from sioux falls for a few days to help find our first home. we found the perfect place after looking at only two others, and joey and i moved in july 1st. that house was where our relationship went from long-distance to live-in, from dating to engaged to married, and we lived in that house up until the 22nd week of our first pregnancy. that house held a loaded basket of memories that i will always cherish and always associate with that beautiful little stucco two story, with the enormous maple in front. so many visitors, so many late night pillow talks, so many wonderful accomplishments - joey and i both earned our masters degrees while living at that house. it was a life-changing time in our lives, and it only took two years.

bye house. we'll miss you!

now, exactly two years to the day that we moved into our first home, joey and i are homeless. my brother and his wife live only a few blocks away from our old home, and they've graciously allowed us to take over their spare bedroom for however long it takes us to get the clear to move to our new home in virginia. we're so grateful to have them close and so willing to help us during this semi-vulnerable time in our little journey across the country. we moved only ten-ish blocks to the east on sunday when we should have been moving 1,100 miles. we're in limbo over here waiting for a security clearance to pass so joey can start his new job. in the mean time, i'm holding on to my job at the university of minnesota for as long as they'll let me. i've been hired to teach 6th grade math in virginia in august, the path is cleared for our move... but there's a very daunting barrier in front of us right now that's sort of kicking us to our knees. in the right minute, when the sun is shining just so, we can let our guards down and convince ourselves this move is on track and that everything is going to work out perfectly. but it's been a battle for us lately, as time continues to creep by, to keep our heads through it all. last night, in the middle of our first night without the comfort of our own bed in our own home, we really had to fight hard to find that light. but every day we get closer, every day is one more step away from the scary unknown and into what will be. in two, three, maybe four weeks?, our new exciting life together on the east coast will begin. we don't know how long it will take to get us there. we don't know much more patience will be needed, or how many more obstacle we'll run into, but we do know that we can thank god every single day that this journey that's battling us so hard right now is one in which we have each other. if everything else goes wrong, at least we will always have that.

our last night in our first home