Time to say goodbye

This past year seems to be full of goodbyes and it doesn’t seem like it is going to slow down anytime soon.  As I previously mentioned my parents courageously left this past Monday to serve a mission in Serbia of all places and while tremendously hard as it was to say goodbye to them for the next 18 months I couldn’t be prouder.  They have given me a lot to live up too.  

For years now we have been discussing with my parents about buying their house because of their desire/need to downsize in home size and yard size and my sentimental need to hang onto everything from my childhood  (let’s be honest I’m a little OCD when it comes to sentimentality to the tune that I own mixing bowls simply because my mom had one just like it when I was growing up and I told B that we needed flour sack towels to dry dishes because they were better…oh and because it is what I used growing up).  With my parents leaving on their mission we all thought this would be the time to move forward with the purchase although none of us expected we would only have two months to wrap up the sell and packing up their whole house let alone planning for their mission but my parents managed to get it all done and we are now the very proud owners of 492 East Sheridan Circle. 

While I am beyond thrilled to finally own my dream home and the opportunity to make it our home I didn’t plan on the emotions that I would experience in having to say goodbye to my childhood home.  After all I have lived in this house my entire life…it is the only home I have known and has been my shelter, my comfort, my home base and the place I knew I was loved.  As I have walked through the now empty rooms I am riddled with memories from my childhood, each room carrying its own potency to trigger moments of laughter or tears.  I remember playing truck stop in our basement with our petulant teenage daughter Princess Leah.  I remember dancing in the living room with Becki to The Carpenters and Roger Whitaker.  I remember working with my dad in his shop building this thing or that.  I remember stripping wallpaper with my mom as we changed the same wall from a deer mural to splattered paint wallpaper and back to paint again.  I remember my mom dressed as the guy from Chain Saw massacre scaring me and my friends to death on the trampoline in the back yard and my dad standing at the top of the stairs mooning Becki and I.  How blessed I am to have had the life that I did and the parents who created such a haven for my siblings and I.  With each memory lies a seed of hope that B and I will be able to continue on in the same tradition and that our kids will one day look at this home with similar eyes.  I even asked my mom before she left “How do I make my kids as sentimental as I am so that when the time comes one of them will want to purchase this home so that it will stay in the family.”  Here’s hoping that I’m successful!

Brave New Adventure!

So this month marks the beginning of a New Year and with this new year there seems to be a theme for new beginnings, new trails to blaze, new houses to buy and make them your home, new growing pains with borders to break and new adventures to be had.  Let me take you back a month so you can understand where this all stems from.

On November 28th, 2012 I got woken up before the sun even thought about showing its first rays by my phone buzzing and before I even answered the phone I knew who it would be and what the phone call was about.  It was my dad calling to tell us that my parents had received their mission calls and that this would be the day we would all know (but never guess in a million years) where they would be going for the next 18 months.  We gathered as a family in their living room all eyes on them as my mom opened the envelope that would test their faith and shape their future.  You see my parents when submitting their call put that they would love to serve on a church history site but were willing to follow where the Lord needed them to go but back to my mom opening the envelope.  The two of them read the letter gasped and looked at each other with wonder and I'm sure a little confusion and fear and we all shouted "Where are you going" to which my mom read "North Adriatic Mission".

Now this took as back as no one was quite sure where that was in the world but we knew it was foreign.  I was thinking that I knew the Adriatic Sea was in Europe somewhere but was thinking it was up by Belgium or the Netherlands and pulled out my phone to look up the mission to pin point exactly where it was when my dad burst out "that is in Canada by Nova Scotia" to which my mom smiled and said "I've always wanted to go to Nova Scotia" and everyone started to celebrate and make plans to visit them with their families.  That is when the mission appeared on the screen of my phone and the first country I saw included in the mission was Bosnia.  Bosnia are you kidding me!!!!!!  I looked up and broke into the celebrations and said "ummm you aren't going to Canada you are going to Bosnia"  If a face can capture fear, shock and confusion my mom's face did so in that moment as everyone fell silent that is until B broke the silence by saying "Isn't their a war going on in Bosnia right now" to which all us kids shushed her immediately because we knew that although true was the last thing my mom needed to hear in that moment. 

The second jaw dropping moment came when we learned they had exactly 2 months to have Christmas, pack up their house (more on this later) and prepare for their mission.  Then the tears the excited chatter and reality of them leaving seemed to settle on the family.  Don't get me wrong, we are SOOOOOO proud of them and excited for all that they have ahead of them but will miss them deeply.  In my patriarchal blessing it states that my parents are my best friends and to turn to them and I have seen this blessing fulfilled time and time again in my life.  I will feel a void in my life for the next 18 months but honestly can't wait to hear about the mission and the people that they love and the culture that they will love.

B and I are planning on visiting them this August in Serbia, where they will be living.  Who ever thought that my first experience in Europe would be in Serbia?  Hopefully we will be able to travel over to Florence Italy and Venice while there as they are very close.  We also felt strongly that we needed to count all the blessings we are receiving because my parents decided to put the Lord first and B has made a board that will hang in our house to record the blessings as we see them.   Their mission will also force me to write more as I have promised my mom that I will write her weekly as she did me...so strange to have the roles reversed some how.  Let me just end by saying how proud I am of my parents and the people of Serbia are so blessed because they will know what true unconditional love truly is and are getting two of the best people I know.