At Last!

We bought a house!!!

And celebrated our 11th anniversary the same week!

Travis and I have been dreaming of having our own house ever since we got married. Probably even before. Everywhere we've lived, we've window-shopped for homes. We've had big dreams about the house we'd live in one day, and a LOT of time to dream them!
11 years of marriage, 8 years of grad school, 4 kids, 5 addresses, 3 states, 5 schools, nearly 100 piano students, and a goldfish named George Bailey.
That's how long we've waited for this.

I'm not gonna lie... if you told me when we first got married that I'd have to wait 11 years before owning a house, I'd probably cry. Maybe even pass out or something. It isn't even all just materialism - really! I'm sad that my daughter will be 9 years old before she can put down some roots, have her own room to decorate, and make some friends that she isn't going to move away from in a couple years.
Nine years old is practically grown-up.
It was overwhelming to sign those papers and walk up to that house and know it is ours.
I know most people have owned maybe even more than one home by the time they are our age. Their children have grown up in the same community, with the same friends, and they probably even often have family close by. We've always felt a little like outsiders everywhere we go (um, because we are), but now, that will end.
Because now we are HOME.

[Well, not yet. We move in 4 weeks.]
And then we'll be HOME.

 Yes, that is a bottle of wine in Travis's hand, and a spare child next to Troy.
Hey, we don't ask questions.
What happens at New House stays at New House.
HA I'm kidding. The builder left us a bottle of wine with a welcome note, and the spare child is a friend (the daughter of the friend taking the picture!)

The amazing backyard view that is the reason we bought the house

 On our way out of town after we closed on the house, we saw this gigantic rainbow arching across the sky. It was so enormous we could see both ends. Almost as if it were a sign...

I'm really excited to go back to Kansas City, although part of the reason why I was sad to leave was because I had made so many close friends... the majority of whom are now moving away! Oh the tragic irony!!!
The kids and I came back to Kansas City for a going away/celebration party for one of my dearest friends. She is moving to Oregon, but she is also an author and is publishing her first book, which will hit the shelves in February!

So our going away party was also themed after the title of her new book: The Last Great Adventure of the PB&J Society. So... peanut butter and jelly bar, of course!
This clever idea is attributed to our other friend Rebecca, who hosted the party and found all the different nut butters. OH and the highlight had to be when one friend dropped in on her way home from a church activity, not knowing beforehand the party theme, and she was like, "Oh I just happen to have a jar of homemade raspberry blackberry jam in my car! I'll just go get it!" It was awesome. And also delicious.

As part of the PB&J theme, we had to perform the sandwich burial ritual as outlined in the book.
(Background: It's a middle-grade novel about a girl who is about to lose her best friend due to him moving away [I KNOW, RIGHT???] and she makes a plan to make him stay. Their friendship involves the ceremonial burial of squished PB&J sandwiches)

Rebecca prepares the sacrificial sandwich while Janet looks up the details of what she wrote in the novel on her phone. Silly girl doesn't have that kind of stuff memorized! Ha ha, I'm kidding.

 
The best part had to be where one person is required to HOLD the sandwich while the other person spits on it.

These two girls have been my running buddies, book club buddies, workout video buddies, and just about everything else. They saw me through an entire pregnancy and a year without Travis. I really wouldn't have made it without them!

Oh yeah and our kids are friends too!
(Here are just a few of them)

Kansas City certainly won't be the same without ALL my Kansas City friends! But I'm still holding on to a far-fetched glimmer of hope that someday, somehow, I'll lure them all back here and we'll all live happily ever after.
In Kansas City.