farewell to 835

{insert sappy quote referring to home here. choices include: Miranda Lambert's "House That Built Me", Sugarland's "Who Says You Can't Go Home" or Michael Buble's "I Want To Go Home"}

Last week my parents closed on their house. It's official, 835 Stacy Road is no longer the Nicholson residence...tear...seriously. We moved in when I was going into 9th grade and Lynley going into 7th. Oh if these walls could talk! They would tell you of last day of school parties, getting ready for home coming, family crowded around card tables at Thanksgiving, graduation celebrations, marrying the love of my life and most importantly- cowboy creeper. And if they could smell they would tell you of my mom's famous queso with sausage, the Sage and Citrus candle that is always burning and instantly reminds me of home, and Doritos-- because strangely enough, that is what our golden retriever, Chloe, always smells like. This was the most perfect house to grow up in. It was beautiful and spacious and most importantly, homey. It was the type of house that instantly disarms and softens you just by driving in the driveway. The type of place you feel safe in, despite our speculations of it being haunted for the first few years. It was not only a house but part of our family. The kitchen was always full of friends whether it was for youth group activities or just hanging out after a AHS football game {Seniors oh four!}. Although my parents are just moving right down the road from this place and I now have my own apartment, my mind will always travel back to 835 Stacy Road when I hear the word "home." When doing so, I hope I am always flooded with heartwarming memories such as:

-Picking numbers between 1 and 50 with Lynley to see who got the "cool" room...which Lynley won
-Missy {our old yellow lab} walking circles around the perimeter of the house, leaving a trail of dead grass
-9th grade birthday party sleepover in the "game garage" {which now that I think about it, didn't have AC}
-Talking on the phone in my closet only to get busted by mom for being on the phone past my 10:30 curfew...I still don't know how she know EVERY time
-Lynley and I sharing a bed every night through high school
-Dad trapping squirrels in the attic and driving them a few miles away to be set free
-Waking up mom in the middle of the night, begging her to take us wrapping/TPing, and her usually agreeing
-Waking up to see snow blanketing the front yard on Valentine's Day 2004
-Sock wrestling and singing the National Anthem in vibrato to put off cleaning our rooms
-Playing pool volleyball with friends home from college {XA U} and Jimmy {our youth/college minister} asking if we were still required to wear one piece bathing suits
-Photo Shoot: 5 reasons why Christmas Break should only be 4 weeks long
-Walking in the breezeway door to be surprised by the best friends and family at our engagement party
-Hurrying downstairs Christmas morning with cousins to see what Santa put in our stockings

-Dad making me coffee every morning during my early mornings working at the hospital

-Dancing with my husband for the first time at our magical wedding reception and leaving as Mrs. Barrett

These are just a few moments that shaped my life while living in this very special place. I am sure most of you have memories of your own here. We love you 835 and hope you will provide the same joy to the next family you house...although we know no one can top us. Now only if we could have visitation rights at Christmas and every other weekend!!

pack it up

In the words of House of Pain, "Pack it up pack it in, let me begin..."

{don't worry if you don't get it, you probably didn't grow up in the 90's}

Yep, we packed up and moved out of Houston last week. Moving was much more time consuming than we estimated.  Tate and I spent 2 weeks prior to moving day packing our junk treasures. Due to this, we frequented Red Box more in these 2 weeks than we had in the entire 2 years we lived in Houston.

fragile, handle with prayer

Our cousin Hunter conveniently came to visit {aka move furniture} a few days before the move. We made sure to take a few needed breaks from packing for the important things in life-- Sprinkles, Astros and Texadelphia cheesesteaks. I could have done without the Astros, but Hunter is a baseball fan, and we don't have money so we had to bribe him somehow.

2 of the 100 'stros fans at the game

we heart sprinkles cupcakes

After all the bubble wrapping and box stacking, moving day was finally upon us.  Months ago we thought neither one of our parents would be available to help us move. My parents were in Scotland while Tate's were in New York. I told Tate, "I know we are adults and all, but we really need some parents here to help." I feared we weren't efficient enough to carefully pack dishes or strategically load a UHaul. And I was right. We broke a plate and almost had to rent an additional trailer. We are just not that "grown up"...yet. Luckily for us, Robby and LaVon came back from NYC a few days earlier than we originally thought and came to our rescue.

get back to work

 Considering all of our belongings fit in a 750 square ft. apartment, we figured it could only take a couple of hours to move, right? Wrong. First of all, our belongings don't fit in 750 square ft. of space, they are crammed, piled, squished. Things in every crevasse. And just when you start feeling accomplished because you think you have it all packed, you find another cabinet full of spices or long lost Christmas decor under the couch {thank you Wrigley for that find}. It took us 5 hours to get everything loaded.

is the UHaul too small or do we have too much stuff?

After loading the 17-ft. UHaul and 4 vehicles to the brim, were ready to head on out of town. This is when Robby decided to take one last look around and found a cabinet full of pots and pans, a steamer, some Advil, an air freshener, and a food processor. What? How did we miss that? We live in a shoe box and had half a month to pack the place. Ah well.

good friends seeing us off

Tate and I packed the last of our belongings in the only box we had leftover and took one last look around. We had a lot of family firsts in B306- first family dinner {it was undercooked and I cried}, first anniversary, first Barrett Christmas tree lighting {Charlie Brown style}, first Texas waffle dinner on Texas Independence Day, first paycheck, first small group, first puppy! All in all, it was the perfect little place to start our little family. We are excited about this new chapter back in Waco, but will always think on Houston with love and admiration.

In other news:

Wrigley is still very cute or "oozing precious" as one stranger put it

Tate finally put on his IronMan decal, so it's official now

Oh, and we have been in Waco for 4 whole days...pics to come