New Home

As you might imagine, I've been away for a few days while packing, moving, and settling into our new place. We don't have Internet yet, either, so I had to wait until I found some Wifi before I could post.

Anyway, the last few days have been a blur. Friday night Terry and I enjoyed one more date night and walk in our lovely little neighborhood before moving. We walked to Wahoo's (fancy, I know, but it's always been one of our nearby favorites), and we also hopped into Westwood for a Diddy Riese ice cream cookie sandwich.

Our last night in the apartment was tough for me, and when I complained that I couldn't understand why I felt so sad, Terry said, "It's because this was the first place that's felt like home." He was right, of course. I got all choked up thinking about the million memories we made there:

• Watching Scout mesmerized by the squirrels and on our back patio

• Terry carrying me over the threshold after our honeymoon
• Coming home to dozens of generous gifts from family and friends after our wedding

• Creating some of our favorite recipes together--it's where we learned to make homemade pizza, boeuf bourguignon, and dozens of others

• Walking to our local farmers' market and some of our favorite restaurants
• Training for our half marathon--we ran almost every training run together in that little neighborhood

• Spending the first three years of our marriage in very tight quarters, which has made me appreciate so much about my husband that maybe I wouldn't have seen in another place.

As I packed the last of the boxes yesterday, I looked around our 650-square-foot, one bedroom apartment and thought we must have been crazy the day we signed that lease. But I'm so glad we took the risk. Living in a small space is not for everyone, but we ended up loving it. And now that we know we can make that work (for three years!), I feel even more confident about any future homes. 

Mostly, I know that home is wherever Terry is, wherever we are together as a little family. And so we said goodbye to our first real home together and moved on to the first home we'll share with our little addition in June.

And that little addition will have a whole lot of SPACE! We had viewed the condo twice before signing the lease, but even after two days of living there we're baffled by the size. It's not huge by normal standards, but it's huge by our standards. My FitBit confirms that I'm nearly doubling my steps, just walking around the apartment. Scout is thrilled to have so much more space to run (that cat loves to run), as he sprints from our bedroom all the way to the other corner of the place, his little paws pitter-pattering across the floors.

In fact, there's a lot I'm loving about our new place, and I'll share more as we slowly set up. For now, thanks to everyone who wished us luck and congratulated us on our new place! We are excited to make it feel like home!

What is your favorite place you've lived?