...To say farewell to Nashville. You'll have to indulge me for a minute, because this is my sentimental post. Not like me, I know (and neither is posting pictures of myself). This is bitter sweet for me. It's only for 2 years and then we will most likely be back. However, with this move I feel like we are stepping into the real world a little more. We seriously have felt like students for the past 11 years since we had arrived in this city I have really grown to love. We leave behind a tiny 2 bedroom apartment for a spacious 4 bedroom house, our neighborhood close to everything for suburbia, and in a way our simpler life, while not necessarily to a more complicated one, more in the direction of established, something I don't really feel. We also leave behind a place where we have set down some deep roots and pulling them up kind of hurts. Our family has thrived and blossomed here with those deep roots to nourish it and I don't want that to whither away. This weekend the reality set in that we are leaving with several events planned, all for one purpose: to say "Good Bye". It's hard.
Here are some of the most amazing, awesome women I know (several others had stopped by, but already left before we got around to taking pictures). Friends from our ward (old and new) threw a little going away party out at Warner Park. The rain held off, the food was good and many had fun playing ultimate Frisbee as well as chatting.
These ladies and I go back a long time(that would be 10!!!! years for Anne Marie and Maura-Lee). The things I've learned from them, most of which they don't even know that they taught me, could fill a book. The love and support I've felt from them has carried me in ways they probably have never known, mostly because I probably haven't expressed it enough. They are amazing!
Now if only we didn't all have to go our separate ways in the years to come, these 5 girls-all born within a month of each other-could hang out together, craft together, have girl's night out, be in Relief Society together 20 years down the road.
We have had so many amazing people cross our paths, that we have looked up to and admire. Seeing that these people are so amazing, their kids are usually that way too. We, Phil and I, have a list in our heads of friend's children that we jokingly tell our kids that if we could, we would betroth them to right now. It's usually a reflection of how much we think of the parents and the awesome job they are doing raising their kids. Example in the picture above (it doesn't hurt that little Nicholas is so dang cute and blows Clara kisses whenever he sees her, which I was not able to get a picture of).
