Goodbye, House. Hello Home.

Just to be clear moving stinks!

For months we have been selling things online, thank goodness for Facebooks yard sale groups.  What hasn't sold has been donated to our local Goodwill.

All of our previous moves have been fairly close in proximity. My point is, this experience is different because we are moving to another state! Colorado to Oklahoma! So we just can't make multiple trips in the truck. We are needing to get a full size moving truck.  Luckily we purchased our new home before selling our current one so we have been able to split the move up into two loads.  The first load  was to remove what the realtor called "clutter" so that the house would show better when we put it on the market. Mostly it was the taxidermy. Really we said, "we're not selling the taxidermy".  But apparently some people are offend by dead animals hanging on the wall. (Maybe he was right though, the house sold in 3 days). Here is  what the truck looked like with all of the taxidermy.

With round two only a week away  we are up to our eyeballs in boxes and very overwhelmed with all that's left to do. Also since I will continue working in Colorado and will be commuting back forth to Oklahoma and trying to get flights scheduled and work schedules all figured out I'm exhausted. 

So I wanted to take a break and acknowledge our house's service to us for the past 13

years. There are a lot of memories so this post is a little long. 

Goodbye, House. And thank you.

We have completed a lot of work on the house over the years. The outside has been painted 3 times. We have repainted the inside to many times to count, replace appliances, replaced light fixtures, built a porch cover, redid some landscaping, remolded bathrooms, and refaced the kitchen cabinets. 

We've had a lot of silliness here. Lots of laughter and tears.

Our first try at having crawfish boil - 

Our son Tyler Robin Hooded his first arrow in the back yard.

13 years of Christmas', Thanksgiving's, Birthdays, Anniversary's, Fireworks, And Thousands of just regular ordinary days.

We also have had numerous foster children come through our home. While most of the children that past through were babies and they won't remember this old house the memories that we have of these special children will remain with us for ever.

Here are just a few of the thousands of pictures / memories of this place we called home for the past 13 years.

Part of me will be sad to say goodbye — but a house is just a shell where the memories happen, and I’m ready to start making memories in our new home.

Now if only I can finish packing…

Seven days of Black and White

Seven days of Black and White Photos -

I was recently challenged on Facebook to post a black and white photo everyday for seven days.

The Challenge was - "Seven Days. Seven Black and White photos of my life. No People. No explanation. and to Challenge someone new each day".

I'm not much for taking up a challenge  but thought this will be easy I can do this one.  It wasn't what I thought it was going be, it was hard.  Post a picture without explanation, What... and not having anyone in the picture, what... and only tag one person each day, what! this was the hardest part of the challenge because I wanted to tag everyone.

Here are the seven photos that I took, and for this blog you get the explanation!

Day 1 - Antique Rocking chair. The rocker is from the early 1900's. It squeaks and cracks when you rock. It makes you wonder how many babies were rocked to sleep back in the day, how many people just sat and rocked to relax from a long hard day.  The rocking chair now sits quietly in a corner of a guest room in hopes that when a guest rocks in it that they would have fun imagining what life and love this old rocker brought to someone long ago.

Day 2 - Time with the Lord is important to me.  I'm an early riser. I love having quiet time first thing in the morning. Coffee with God, no better way to start the day. 

Day 3 - Outside living- Actually this is the Cell phone sitting area.  We have never had good cell service inside the house, which is the reason we have a land line too. When a call comes in on our cells phones you can find us sitting out on the porch. 

Day 4 - Our kitchen - This is where life happens and memories are made.  Our memories go on forever - Dinners, family meetings, homework, game night, joke telling, budget planning. This is defiantly our happy place.  

Day 5 - Leaf Peeping - We love the fall colors.  Whether it's being out in the mountains or somewhere in the city the colors of fall are always amazing. 

Day 6 - Our Dogs - We have had dogs in our family for as long as I can remember. They have helped bring joy and comfort to us through the years. 

Day 7 - This is our new home in Oklahoma. Four years ago the Lord put Oklahoma on our hearts. For four years we have searched for a home in Oklahoma.  This is the place that was selected for us by God, more on this journey to come...