bye bye llamas

Yesterday morning we woke up in our old house for the last time. It was nice to "sleep in" (Paul was at Grandma's) and have a relaxing morning reminiscing about our time in the house & listing the things we will miss/not miss (more on that below). Then the work began. It took about five hours to pack up the rest of the house & clean. Many thanks to Bryan & Amy, without whom we'd probably still be packing! Bryan expertly brought the truck right up to our front door (CJ most likely would have driven it straight into the house) and Amy helped clean and maintain sanity. Today we are headed to the new place to drop off our stuff. Unfortunately it may be a while before we actually move it due to the seller's death. Sigh. And we found out yesterday that her son is still living on the property. He was supposed to move out April 1. It is hard to be mad seeing as he has had a difficult week, but I am a little worried about leaving our stuff there. Of course we did not learn about this until after the truck was completely packed.

In the meantime, the weather is finally improving & we have been able to get Paul out of the house a bit. On Friday mom & I took him to the bike path, where he enjoyed enthusiastically naming everything "RIVER! BIRD! GRASS! DUCK! STICK!" and racing full speed ahead on the path. He even chased a couple of older gentleman out for a leisurely stroll. One commented that Paul was "full of life." That's for sure! He may be exhausting, but it he definitely puts a smile on the faces of everyone he meets!

Here are some things we will miss about our old home:

• when the snow lands on CJ's wall and makes it look like a Thomas Kincaide painting
• watching random creatures wander through our backyard (however we will not miss the deer eating all of our tulips, which btw they have already done, leaving the new homeowners with nothing but nubs)
• our GIANT garden (we will not miss the mosquitoes that made it nearly impossible to work out there)
• the fabulous butt workout you got from walking up our hill
• silence (we'll be in the 'burbs now!)
• driving past the llamas and various other farm animals, & listening to Paul make animal sounds
• the handful of friends that made our time there enjoyable. You are always welcome for a visit!