Living Large

If you ask my kids, they will say we're living like rock stars.  We've been in the hotel for 3 nights now and we are kind of settling into a routine.  Wake up (way too early), get ready for school, go downstairs to eat the hotel breakfast (annoying every other diner with our boisterousness), drive to school, come home from school, go swimming, go out to eat, get ready for bed.  What's not to like?!  All you parents out there can probably think of a few things not to like.  But really, it's not been so bad.  The boy and I manage to stay busy throughout the day and it's amazing how fast the time goes.  I'm just doing a lot of reading which I love so all in all, not so bad.

Tomorrow (Friday) I'm getting the girls out of school early and we'll all head on up to Grand Rapids to get our stuff situated in our new rental home.  It will be good to get out of this hotel for a couple of days and to have another adult around to help with the kids.  And it will be good to start settling in to our new place and not feel so displaced.

Our house closed without a hitch so there are new people living there.  I was not very emotional as we were packing and moving everything out.  But when I noticed my neighbors heading out to the lake, we stopped on over to say our final goodbyes to them.  They are great people but we've never been what you would call close to them.  I went to give hugs and that's when the tears almost fell.  Which goes to show that a house is just a thing but it's the people you will miss beyond measure.  Even though we built this house and made all kinds of improvements that made it our own, and we raised all our kids here and there were so many "firsts" here, I know that there will always be another house that we can make into a home and there will always be all kinds of firsts.  This journey will just become part of our collective story.

As will living large in our hotel, holed up together, on the edge of everything new.  Years from now, settled in our home with other firsts behind us, we'll sit around the table together telling stories that start with, "Remember that time in the hotel before we moved up here?"  And it will be a really good memory.