Goodbye

Last Saturday we closed the doors to our first home forever.   We worked so hard packing, moving and cleaning that by the end of it I was sooo.... happy to finally be done and give the keys away.  It wasn't until the next day the new owner texted me a question and along with it commented we are almost moved in that it hit me that it is not our home anymore.  It brought all sorts of emotions to the surface.  No longer is that house the "Richards" home.   This home was were it all started with Bart and I.  We moved in when we got married and brought both of our girls home to it.   8 and a 1/2 years of both good and bad memories are in that house.   So here is a list of the good and bad.

First of all the things I'll miss about this house...

My red brick bungalow.  I remember the first time I pulled up to this house I thought I entered a story book fairy tale.   I still catch myself pulling into the driveway loving the look of my charming brick house.

Location, Location, Location.   My beautiful sugarhouse tree lined street.   I fell in love with trees living in the neighborhood.  I loved all the many times I put my girls in the jogging stroller and enjoyed shaded peaceful strolls.   We've also been blessed with great neighbors.

My mantel.   The only thing that bothered me about this house when we first went through it was the ugly black tiled fireplace in the front room.  After a couple of years of "convincing" Bart that we could change it.  He finally got our a chisel and slowly picked away all the black tile and replaced it with this beautiful marble.  A mantel company came in and placed the cherry wood mantel around it and which made it perfect!!!  I loved decorating this for the holidays and always loved the finished product.

 


Here are the things I won't miss even for a second.....

My back yard.   We bought our house in February during a very wet winter.  The backyard looked so big and beautiful covered in a few feet of snow.  Then March and April came along and so did the dandelions that carpeted the whole yard.  In our ambitious young naive minds we began to dig up the weeds.     That first year I had visions of making all the rocked flower beds bloom with perennials.   Little did I know Crab Grass and Bind weed are from Hell and impossible to get rid of.     I'll be the first to admit that neither Bart and I have any remote signs of a green thumb.

Never again will I tolerate an apricot tree in my yard.   At first I was so good at picking the apricots and making jam, nectar and fruit leather.   Yet it still produced more fruit than I could keep up with and it was exhausting to fill up garbage can after garbage can of squishy nasty apricots.  The last few years our tree has not produced any fruit.  I consider it a blessing although my 90 year old Grandma is always sad when I can't send home a box of the apricots for her to bottle.   My mom told me that trees do have spirits and it probably heard me curse it for so many years that it's given up producing fruit for me.  I responded that if it did hear me and stopped making apricots than it is my new best friend.  


The kitchen.   When it was just Bart and I this kitchen was fine but things have changed.  I hate not having any dining space and squeezing my family of 4 and a 1/2  around this two man nook space has not been enjoyable.  Just the other week Emily and Jane both insisted sitting by their dad so I being 9 months pregnant was stuck in the corner with the table pushing against my belly and I thanked heaven I'm leaving it behind.

As much as I love trees, having a ginormous one in my front yard makes many long hours of racking and bagging leaves.  Although big piles of leaves produce barrels of fun for the girls,  I think Bart will be happy to leave the rake behind.  

 So Goodbye house.  I will always love you, even if I've cursed you.  Thank you for the warm winters, cool summers and many wonderful memories!!!

My girls

My girls are with my family this week.  I came across this picture that made me miss their cute personalities.

 As much as I miss them I know they are having way more fun living up the country life.  I've already got a full report about how "Bryler found a dead mouse in a trap and the eyes were still open.  Belle then took the mouse and fed it to the dog."    It's such a relief to know they are being taken care of and  happily entertained.  How great it was to pack up their bedroom without two little hands taking long forgotten toys out of the box because suddenly they can't live without it for a few weeks.  

Wish me luck that I can get everything done.   I'm back to work this week and our move out date has been moved up to this Saturday!   I'll I can say is packing is for the birds, especially being so pregnant.  

For my own remembrance

I was cleaning out and packing up my cedar chest and was amazed but some items that I knew must of had some sentimental significance to me but for the life of me I couldn't remember anything about the item.  It bothered me that my memory has failed me.  It also spurred me into documenting why other things in my cedar chest were worth keeping. 

When my girls woke up and came in my room and saw all these treasures on my bed they were amazed and wanted to touch everything.    Emily noticed a couple of stuffed animals and inquired if they were indeed my stuffed animals.  She gave me this look like mom's don't have stuffed animals. So I let her hold them and told her why they were in a special place and why I had kept them all these years.

The first is the elephant named "Ellie".  When I was 3 I went into the hospital to have my Achilles Tendon lengthened.   I don't know where I got this elephant but I remember waking up in the middle of the night and being alone and scared and having it there to hug comforted me.  (My mom has since told me that back in those days they didn't allow parents to stay the night with their children).   

Down the hall from my room at Primary Children's Hospital they had a game/library room.  On one of the days I was hospitalized Cookie Monster came to visit the kids on our floor in that room.  He was huge and covered with blue fur and nice as can be.  That was where my obsession for the monster came from.    As I watched Sesame Street I always felt a kinship to him since both of our names started with "C".  One time I all alone sitting at my kitchen table with a bowl of pudding.  I decided to eat it just like cookie monster would and I made a big mess all over my face and clothes.   Boy was my mom not too happy finding me in that situation. 

So in case my memory continues to fail me at least my kids will know why a  grown woman  always kept these two stuffed animals. 

Where have all the hero's gone?

A few weeks ago I took my girls to the movie "Brave."   After the movie I left feeling let down.  Sure it was a good feel good movie about developing a good relationship with your mother I'll give it that.    I hated that the 3 male suitors were either a stoner, big and dumb or insecure and scrawny.  The girl instantly rejects all of them to maintained her independence.  I couldn't tell why I was disturbed?  Was it my chick flick side that likes movies with at least a little love interest in them.
Fast forward a couple weeks and I'm reading my girls a new Dora book.    We come to a part where the knight is fighting a dragon.  I stumble over the words because it referred to the knight as a she.  I read it again and sure enough the knight is a girl.
That's when it hit me why I was so disturbed.  I started thinking about recent popular young adult books and prove me wrong but all but Harry Potter  has a girl as the main character.  So what's up with society?  Do we no longer celebrate men as the "knight in shining armor" that comes to the rescue.   In fact I think they are often portrayed as less than equal idiots. Don't get me wrong I'm all about women's rights but I guess now that I am about to have a boy coming to this world I'd hope that male confidence and strength can be encouraged along side that of women's.
Besides I don't want to start having to slay dragons.  I feel like I've already got too much on my plate.

Pioneer Day

The night before the 24th we did a FHE about Pioneers.  I asked them what a pioneer was and Emily said "They were people who put a little bit of milk in a can and tied it to their wagon and the wagon shook it and made it into butter."  The highlight of sharing time for my girls was when primary had made cream into butter in little containers on Sunday and told them that this is how they made butter while crossing the plains.  I loved how big Jane's eyes were as I told them the story of the miracle of the seagulls.   They got so into it they wanted me to tell them more pioneer stories.  

I love to go up Emigration Canyon on Pioneer Day and eat breakfast at Ruth's Diner on the 24th of July.  Most of the time I can convince Bart that this is a good idea.  (He's not a big go out to eat for breakfast kind of guy)  My leverage this year was that now we  most likely won't be living so close to the canyon this may be our last year doing it.   The weather was perfect we talked about how the pioneers came down this canyon to settle Salt Lake and of course Ruth's mile high biscuits made it worth it.

We then headed up to Lagoon to enjoy the day with Bart's family.  Jeff took a few pictures of the girls at Lagoon a Beach.  Emily was with Max and MIA most of the time due to her new found  love of big water slides.  

This was also the first time Emily had no interest in the kiddie land.   She's a big girl now who tries all the rides she is tall enough for and loves the Big White Roller Coaster. 

  Jane is still happy on Lady Bug Bop and says when she is older she will try the bigger rides.