Hey Hon…were the maids supposed to vacuum under the sofas? Can we get a refund?

If you’ve been a reader of this blog and recently said to yourself, “Hey – that GenXDaddy guy has been slacking off! Where are all the new stories?!?!” I have two things to point out: 1) You should seek help if you find yourself asking rhetorical questions out loud, and 2) Yes, I have been delinquent in adding stories for one very good reason – We’re moving!

That’s right – after 8 years in our house, we’re moving on!

This wasn’t the easiest decision. Yes, we had run out of space…yes, the plumbing sucked…yes, the floor tiles kept coming apart…yes, the hot and cold water faucets were switched…yes, the locks had been broken…yes, the yard had completely died (even with gardeners tending to it) and, yes…we lived across the street from a crack house (excuse me, “Unofficial Halfway House.”) But, it was our home.

I will always love that home for sentimental reasons. It’s where GWE and I started our family – we created our boys there, brought them home from the hospital, and I even buried their freshly circumcised schmeckles under the lemon tree in the front yard. (Sorry if you read this while drinking your morning coffee.) It’s where we celebrated birthdays and holidays. It’s where Justin and I locked ourselves in the bathroom for an entire weekend of potty training and where Garrett drove his first car…into the water main. It’s where the Man Cave was constructed…and still remains.

And, yes – it is the house that was broken into by four thieves in the middle of the afternoon while we were at work. But, they were arrested INSIDE the house and we did end up making an extra $25 dollars in prison restitution money – so, that’s a plus!

In an attempt to bring closure to this chapter in our lives, my mother suggested something that she had done whenever she was moving around as a child. She told me that she and her sisters used to write messages to the house on the walls as a “goodbye.” I thought it was a brilliant idea, so we wrote messages to our house as well:

This is what we wrote in Justin’s room.

These notes to the house are self-explanatory!

We are moving on and we’re just now getting settled into our new home. I’m excited about the new memories we will make here and I’m looking forward having enough square footage so that I don’t have to step on Legos in the middle of the night!