Thirteen in Eighteen

Well. Yes. I am here. I think. No, no, I'm here. Yes. Here. I am right back where I started from. Literally, the same town I grew up in is now where we live, again. It's all very very good. I am happy to be home. We got to move right back into our same house, too. I have been forcing myself to come up with different places for things, you know, switch it up a bit. It's been going well. I knew we were moving back just one week before we actually pulled the three (yes, you read that right, 3, tres, three) moving trucks out of the driveway. But more on that later.

All of the moving had me recalling all of the moves we have made in our eighteen years of marriage. We counted thirteen total such events. Thirteen.

First, the week of our wedding I moved from my parent's home and my baby pink bedroom of many many years into my first home, ever. There wasn't much to move, a navy blue couch, a kitchen table and chairs, a few end tables, a bedroom set and various boxes and wedding gifts. It all went into a small little one bedroom house just outside Hubby's first duty station in the middle of the desert. We didn't live there (not even one night!) until we returned from our honeymoon.

The next most memorable move (there were 2 more in between the first and this one) was down to the beach town we would spend the next three years in. We lived on base. We loved it. I spent the first summer freezing in sweats and wondering where the heck the sun went. Then we adjusted, and fell in love with it. It's still a bit of a home away from home for us.

Another memorable move was to our first home we ever owned. We felt like we were royalty! We watched it be built. We wrote in drywall things like 'baby's room' and put our hands into wet cement. We lived there for three years but that will always be our house.

After leaving that house (yes, with baby in tow now) we were back in an apartment at the same small beach town as before, waiting for orders for Hubby to head off to war. As he prepared for war, we headed back to the town we are in now. We bought a house again, this time on a lake and once again felt like royalty. He returned from Iraq and sold that home on the water and bought the home we are in now. After three years here, we rented it out and moved to the last house we were in. Two years later, we are back and whew, I'm exhausted.

So, two months ago, we packed by just throwing things into boxes, loaded up a four bedroom plus loft home and, with help from my family and a few of our friends drove three large moving trucks of stuff and four vehicles following back to where we started from. Before moving this time I made Hubby promise that this was the last move. He agreed. You all are my witnesses.