It's Been Good.

The buyers moved into 4064 Challis last Sunday morning.  God bless my sister for hanging out with all five children so that I could finish cleaning the old house by myself the Friday before.  I was overcome with emotion as I went from room to room with a magic eraser, removing the remaining proof of our having lived there.  As grateful as I am for our new home, that house has been good to us.

Nick bought the new construction home in the spring time of 2004, just after he finished flight school, when the real estate market was especially hot in Clarksville.  He jokes about how any upgrade requests he made were shot down, and he was reminded that there were plenty of other takers.  It started as Nick's bachelor pad, and was the place that I would run to for weekend escapades while we were still dating long distance.  Everytime we arrived home from the airport, I would promptly walk over to my stash of cleaning supplies to scrub the toilet.  It was very much a "guy" house: simply furnished with just the bare necessities, a barren refrigerator, the cupboards boasted plastic beer cups collected at sporting events, and hadn't seen a cleaning product since the last time I visited.

Before Nick returned from his second deployment to Iraq, Mom, Kris and I flew out to "prepare" the house.  By the time we left three days later, the house was sterilized, reorganized, and had a feminine touch. :)  We still laugh about that trip when we recall how we barely had time to eat as we sprinted from one project to another.

I moved in after Nick finished up the Captain's Career Course, three months after our wedding.  Our relationship was tested as we dove into house renovations...We had laminate and new carpeting installed to replace the defective, snagged berber that came with the house.  We painted the majority of the interior as you couldn't brush up against the wall without leaving a mark, thanks to builder's grade paint-water.  We also began overhauling the jungle of a backyard.  My Nick learned the hard way that I don't mess around (or take breaks) when I am focused on a project. :-P

There was an unfortunate attempt at gutting the backyard with a rented bobcat and harley-rake, but a flash flood swept away our grass seed.  Defeated, we decided to embrace the weeds and just appreciate that they were green.  So long as no one looked too closely, it could appear to be grass when cut short.

Nick built the privacy fence between several deployments.  It took a bit longer than he had originally planned, but it is PERFECT.  He taught himself how to build it from conversations with friends, the fine sales associates at Lowes, and DIY youtube videos.  I can't help but smile thinking about the two of us, racing against sun, to finish drilling planks into the cross boards, all the while getting destroyed by mosquitos.

We welcomed our first-born into that home.  I remember Nick being determined to start off his role as "alpha" from the get go.  As soon as I arrived home with two 1 pound fur balls, Nick used a Cesar Milan approach to allow them entrance into our home.  It would have been great, had they been big enough to clear the front steps.

Then, there were our human babies.  I poured my nervous new-mommy energy into making my babies rooms their own.  Decorating their spaces offered so much comfort and was such an outlet for the excitement that came with this new chapter in our lives.  I memorized every square inch of their nurseries while rocking them to sleep.

There were times that I grew weary of looking at those walls, though, as I counted down the days of deployments.  I spent a lot of time alone in that house, waiting for my Nick to come home.  Those are hard memories.  But, amidst the uncertainty that came with our separations, that home was a constant.

There was my fateful shower repair the day that Nick came home from Afghanistan in 2011, which spurred our bathroom renovations.  How I will never miss being pregnant, traipsing down the hallway multiple times a night to use the guest bathroom for months on end.  I like to think the end product was worth it.  It felt like I'd officially made the cross-over to "adult" after picking out tile and light fixtures.

It's weird to think that a house that you have lived so much life in, could be a place that you'll never step foot in again.  My mom helped me to see that it's time for us to pass the torch, we've outgrown our "starter home." It's someone else's turn to make memories there now.  For that, I feel grateful.

The space where we spent 90% of our time awake...It looks so much bigger without anything or anyone in it!

My kitchen.  The quickest way to get me fired up was when I needed to pull a pan from the cabinet (pretty much every meal time.)  I had them stacked four our five high.

I wanted the shade lighter and Nick wanted a shade darker, so we compromised on the "Dark Storm Cloud" paint color.  HA!

After I found out I was pregnant with Emmy, I placed the positive test on the window sill and hopped in the shower to wrap my mind around this new overwhelmingly happy and scary discovery.  Nick walked in a few minutes later and found it, and we just stood there beaming at each other.

Where Emmy began her potty training adventure.  After several months hiatus, it's still a work in progress.

The once office turned Emmy's room.

Was once Nick's roommate's room, then guest room, then study and finally Hannah's nursery.

My laundry closet.  It's size forced me to keep the pile of dirty clothes from getting too high.  I might be in trouble with a whole laundry room to fill now!

The once pool room (in the pre-Ali days), turned storage room (Nick had a large collection of couches that people were looking to offload,) turned man/multi-purpose room.  I spent many hours up there running on the treadmill preparing for the half marathon two years ago.  Nick would escape up there to play video games before we had kiddos.

The yard needs some love now, but this was my first gardening attempt.   It was established on Halloween 2007.  I didn't want all of our neighbors talking about our abysmal landscaping while out trick-or-treating, so I spent the day digging, weeding, planting and mulching. 

My second attempt at creating a flower bed.  I realized how much I detest digging while working on this one.

Nick's masterful fence.