going home

i distinctly remember a snippet of time when i was in 3rd grade. i was sitting on the standard blue school carpet in mrs. enfield's class. it must've been free time and i was playing a "name the states" game with my friend. the wooden board map of the u.s. was out in front of me and i had to name wisconsin and it's capitol. this was back when i knew all the states and their capitols.

moving to wisconsin was on a whim. never in our life did we ever think we'd make a life here, and tackle some of our biggest life goals in a place i had only ever heard about on commercials about sad wisconsin cows and how the happy cows live in california.

we moved to wisconsin without having a place to live and everything fell magically into place.

it was hard at first, settling in and saying goodbye to our former home in utah,

it always is.

but as the months went by, and the friends were made, and i discovered my favorite places to buy groceries, or who to take the kids to for dr. appts, or where to have my ultrasounds...

wisconsin became familiar. wisconsin became home.

some of our very best memories are in madison. it was really our first time living together without family in our basement. don't get me wrong, we loved having our brothers' company and their willingness to babysit at any hour. but there was something really special about our newfound independence. it was our time to bond, it was our time to really get to know each other. after all, madison was where our fun friday traditions began.

there were zoos, there were museums, lakes, camping, "swiss villages", restaurants from around the world with only a walk down state street. there were liberals, there were conservatives, there were independents - all in healthy numbers. there were saturday farmers markets, and everything was within 10 minutes of where we lived.

but the thing that really blew us away were the people. the people in wisconsin are amazing. it wasn't very difficult to make life-long friends here.

i was relieved when we got a job in sparta when sam was finished with law school. a year ago, i wasn't ready to leave just yet. we were still close enough to madison, yet far enough away to get used to the idea of leaving wisconsin within our two year time frame since sam's job only allowed for that long.

and we were still close enough to all our family in green bay. 

we weren't ready to say goodbye to them either.

sparta was very small and not like madison at all. however, its small town charm did seem to capture us, and we felt we could slow down and really soak in the days. i'm not gonna lie, i bawled my eyes out as we waved goodbye to our dear friends and our old home in madison.

it's a tedious job to have to make new friends, find new doctors, register in a new school, set up silly things like internet and utility junk, all while trying to unpack boxes.

and the kids still missed madison and their old friends. so did i.

i missed the familiarity, i missed my routine, i missed the easiness of it all.

but a year has passed, and our neighbors are more amazing than we ever could have hoped for.

i worried about the transition to a new school, and in the end, it all turned out just fine.

this summer has been a dream, with adventurous weekends and lazy weekdays - time enough to recover from our wisconsin bucket list and just hang out with the neighbors.

we had so much more time to focus on being a family and working better together as a family.

sparta has been so good for us.

and now the time to finally leave wisconsin has come...

and somehow, i'm not quite sure how to feel about it.

when we found out sam got the job in arizona, we were ecstatic. this is what we had been praying for all along. so why do i feel so mixed up?

i am thrilled at the idea of being closer to my family. i am beyond excited to hang out with my best, good, childhood friends again. it is going to be like heaven to be within a days drive to our family in slc, st. george, and phoenix. we're a stone's throw away from southern california and las vegas. everything seems so perfect, even the kids can't stop talking about it.

and more than that, this is a stellar career opportunity for sam.

i really tried not to get too attached, especially knowing that our stay was only temporary, but i will miss this place. i'll miss my running trails, the red barns dotting the highways, the rolling hills blanketed with lush trees and grass, the way the fog rolls in, the amish buggies parked at the grocery store, the months of downpours and how we would dance in the rain. i'll especially miss the way the fireflies bobbed over the yard on summer nights.

i'll miss the neighbor kids running through my house, and the way they made my children throw their heads back and laugh.

and i'm sure, after the moving van is packed full with boxes, and the place we once called home is empty...i'm sure i'll be bawling my eyes out once again. because no matter how much i tried not to get too attached, it's hard not to feel something for a place you really let yourself live life in.

but i can't be too sad for too long. i'm going home.

and it's nice to have so many of those now.

the end.