Nine years ago almost to the day, I posted on the blog that we were moving to Rochester Minnesota. Well, our family is on the move again, this time only about a little over an hour away. My husband accepted a new job a few weeks ago and will be working in Downtown Minneapolis a few days a week and working from home the rest of the week. Our home was listed in the middle of April and within a week we had an accepted offer which was awesome! This past weekend we found a home and put in an offer. So the beginning of June we will be moving to our new home.

While we are excited for this new opportunity for my hubby, moving will be hard. Leaving behind our amazing neighbors and cul-de-sac has been weighing heavy on our hearts. We’ve made some great friends living here the past nine years and our youngest really doesn’t remember living in Wisconsin. This is the only home he has known.

Last night as I was laying in bed, I was grieving leaving our home and neighborhood. All the wonderful memories made here with our children, friends and family. The celebrations of baptisms, birthdays, Super bowls, small groups, book clubs, bible studies, Downton Abbey, New Years, Goodbye and Graduation parties. Groups of friends for dinners, games, pool parties and grill outs. First and last day of school pics on the front steps, Prom and Homecoming pics in the front yard. Neighborhood kids running from house to house, playing games, kickball, tag and capture the flag. Bikes and scooters all over the driveway, the gate on the fence left open because they were running all around the neighborhood together. Backyard fires with neighbors, burning Christmas trees, murder mystery parties, planting trees together and so many more memories.

All the work we put into this house, really making it ours. Bringing years of pinterest and instagram inspiration to life. This is where we learned how to make a home ours, how to make it function for our family and friends that would stay with us. So many DIY projects, honing in on our style and what we love. Even at one point turning our basement into a studio space for our workshops. Making a place of rest for weary friends, those visiting Mayo clinic for health concerns or just needing a break from the world for a few hours.

So while we grieve all the wonderful memories, our neighborhood and even our home, I know that God has good things planned for us in our new city, neighborhood and home. And with that comes the grieving of our family changing, our kids growing up and life moving on. We are grieving childhoods lived out, times changing, jobs changing and getting older. We are so grateful that we have such awesome things to grieve. Our leaving won’t be with a thank goodness we got out of there but wow, the past nine years were amazing. Thank you Lord for giving us such a beautiful home and community. We trust you to provide again, that you have gone before us and our new home and community may be different but it will still be good.

I’ve already been busy on Pinterest, curating some new ideas for our new home. We are purchasing a model home so it’s newish, as in no one has lived in it but I am sure a few hundred people have walked through it since last fall. More on our new home coming soon in another post, I’ve already given it a nickname. It’s a different layout than our current home and we will hopefully only have two kids at home in the fall because the oldest two will be off at college.

I’m off to pack some more boxes and get ready to host a graduation party in a few weeks, a few days before we move. This is such a strange time we are in and in ways it has made moving easier as we really don’t have any activities or end of the year stuff going on. But it definitely has also made it harder in that we won’t have the normal goodbyes or end of the year stuff. Stay tuned as we post about our new home and some projects we already have in our heads for the new home.