Two Goodbyes

What makes a week of moving even crazier?  When your MIL and FIL are moving from their house to a new house in the same week!

My MIL and FIL sold their house a while before the Hubs and I sold our own, but the way the cookie crumbled has us all scrambling to pack up and haul out during the same time frame.

Welcome to Crazy Town.

What it boils down to is a couple of really crazy weeks and two house-related goodbyes in the same stretch of seven days.

Tonight the Hubs and I took Newbie over to Grandpa and Grandma's for our last hoorah.  We have a slew of memories built up in the walls of that house, and while the Hubs has a billion more before I came along, I have several of my own.

My MIL and FIL's Country House is where the Hubs and I first met.  It was a (nice, chaperoned, and crazy-free) after prom party our senior year of high school with several of our mutual friends.  He was a looker and a charmer and left me wishin' and hopin' he'd call me after I went home.  (He did. But it was two weeks later.  Worth the wait.  But I'm just saying.)

Our favorite date was at the Country House.  We started there and then the Hubs took me all through town on a four-wheeler.  I didn't even know what a quad was until I met that guy, but I loved blazing through the tall grass and thick trees with my arms wrapped around his waist.  Favorite date by far for both of us in those first years. Hard to believe that was seven years ago now. 

My in-laws have always had a hot tub, and we have always smelled like chlorine when we leave their house.  (Well, in the early years before I got pregnant with Newbie and had to sit out for fear of hard-boiling my baby, and now I still sit out with a little guy who is too small to roast in the hot tub). We spent several nights under the stars hanging out in the hot tub and solving all the world's problems- procrastinating on college papers and just chilling out in the HT instead. 

Another smell I'll forever associate with the Country House is the husky scent of burning logs in a wooden stove.  Yum. One time when we were dating, I was the lucky girl who got to help the menfolk drop logs down the shoot from outside into the basement where the wood stove was.  We stacked the logs against a wall in the storage section of the basement, and I had never felt more domesticated.  If the Hubs and I ever have to rough it in a log cabin with only a fire to warm us and our littles, worry not- homegirl has it covered.

The Hubs dropped the three worded bomb on me in the basement of the Country House.  I'll never forget where I was sitting when he whispered, "I love you."  The sweet aroma of chlorine (again!) filled the air and we were hanging out in the basement after an evening of swimming before we went home for the night, and he said it.  I couldn't believe he did, because I had told him to keep that to yourself unless you are sure you mean it, mister.  And he did.  He had waited for a long time, and he meant it and he said it, and I almost tromped down to the basement tonight to take a picture of the very spot that started forever. Then I realized the photograph would never do justice to the sweet picture I have imprinted in my mind.  So I didn't try because some things have to be left as memories- they taste better that way. 

The Country House hosted Easter this past year.  It was so fun watching my little man all decked out in his Easter plaid with matching tie and hat toddle all over that big front yard.  He had a ball rolling in that fresh green grass with Mimzy the pug.  We had a big Easter egg hunt that sent us running across all lengths of that yard for some killer-good eggs full of green bills and candy.  Such fun!

Speaking of the holidays...Oh my Christmas.  My mother-in-law throws a Christmas gathering like nobody's business.  When I think of Christmas at the Country House, I think of snuggly jammies that we usually wore, regardless of the time of day we came over.  I think of a BEAUTIFUL tree trimmed with red and silver and glittering with fluffy white snow that never melts.  (My MIL is a tree decorating extrodinaire.) I think of oodles of boxes wrapped to match with bows and tags tucked under the tree.  Of smells coming from the kitchen that could mean nothing but YUM.  And lots and lots of smiles.  Because my MIL and FIL know how to play Santa well, and because there's no place like home for the holidays, folks.

We've shared many a dinner over the small round table at the Country House.  The MIL and FIL are incredibly hospitable, and I have always loved the vast array of cheese and crackers that always sit out on the counter to curb any grumbling tummies before dinner is ready.  One time when we were dating, the Hubs and my FIL conspired to get me to eat some sort of pheasant-turkey-goose they had recently shot out in a real field somewhere.  We are talking fresh out of the woods, my friends.  Nothing testified to the authentic nature of that meal more than the BULLET I crunched down on while I was chewing my third or fourth bite.  WHAT the WHAT?!  I was munching away thinking, "this whole hunting thing isn't so bad because this food is actually delicious" when my teeth grounded down on what could have only been something trying to kill me.  Or at least turn me off of pheasant-turkey-goose for life.  I pulled the perpetrator out of my mouth, and I kid you not when I say it was a REAL LIVE bullet. As in a round sphere the color of steel stinking hanging out on my dinner plate.  Apparently it was a relatively normal thing for hunters to experience at the dinner table, because they both just chuckled at my reaction. As much as I have enjoyed sharing dinner at the Country House, I can honestly say I will never eat a pheasant-turkey-goose thing again.  Amen.

But I will eat regular turkey.  I'll never forget the Thanksgiving when I was pregnant with Newbie.  My MIL was hosting Thanksgiving at her house that year, and the spread she was rocking on that dining room table was a sight for a sore pregnant woman's eyes.  I don't know that I've ever eaten more in my life.  It. was. amazing.  Also, her Yorkshire pudding?  Put a fork in me, I'm done.

Of course, its not all about the bullets and the food.  There was the big pool in the summertime where we swam and swam and swam each year.  And the woods where we walked Opie every once in a while and where the Hubs and I went exploring.  There was the deer stand that I sat in with the Hubs a good four hours one opening day when we were dating and I was still trying to get him to like me enough to marry me.  Four hours in, the cold and the mice had me making a beeline back to the house- proposal or not, nothing was worth sitting out in the tundra listening to mice scurry over your head in a deer stand! There were the grandparents' houses that sit not-too-far away, making for fun visits when we came out to the country.  There was the garage door with dents in it from the time the Hubs' brother locked him out of the house and he tried to bang the door down with a sledge hammer.  (I always thought that was the funniest story because the Hubs is one of the most even-keeled guys I know, and it tickles me to think of him getting mad enough to whack a door with a hammer several times.) And there was, be still my heart, the fireflies and the spring peepers that kept the Hubs and I company when we hauled a couple lawn chairs out to the backyard to watch the stars while we were dating.  We had a thing for stars.  Its what we did to end many a fun day together back when we were falling in love. The spring peepers filled the night air with their happy song, and the fireflies danced in the field in front of us.  Sitting there in that backyard that night is one of my fondest memories of my time at the Country House. 

So many good memories all built up in one place.  I scooped them up and stuck them in a bottle tonight before we drove away so the Hubs and I could keep them forever.  We're looking forward to seeing what my MIL and FIL make of their new place, and we're excited to start building some new memories there with our family in tow!

With all the house goodbyes this week, we are feeling a mess of stress and emotion (mostly me in the emotion arena!) and happy anticipation of what is to come.

We sign the papers at nine tomorrow morning.

New adventure?  Bring it.