Hello everyone. Long time no see! My motivation for returning? Well, I DO hope to return for good once we are truly settled in our new home and I am finding myself "bored" with no pictures to hang, walls to paint, shelves to put up, garages to clean, closets to organize, boxes to sort... etc. BUT my reason for returning at this point is because I've decided that I am going to turn the 2 1/2 years of blogging I did in Spain into a hardcover coffee table book. I am SO excited about this and I put it all together the other day, but realized that my last blog post was just an every-day POD. The book had no ending. No resolution. The first post of my blog begins with our journey to Spain, and it would only be fitting for the last page of my book to end with a blog post that concludes our time there. So, I am writing that post now. :)
I will say, it's probably better that I write such a post now, because had I written it during our last days/hours in Spain, I would have been a blubbery mess and the keyboard would have been a puddle. I have had months now to heal, so I THINK I can get through this post without tears.
Saying goodbye to our home was so hard. It was our first HOME. Why our first? Well, for starters, Matt and I had moved from an apartment in Chicago, so this truly was our first house. But a home, as all of you know, is much more than four walls and a roof. A home is where your FAMILY is. It wasn't until Matt and I (and Takoda, of course) adopted Sultan (our black Spanish pup) and had Finlay (our beautiful blond Roteño) that we really felt like we were a family. The neighborhood also helped to make this place really feel like HOME. When we moved to Rota, we did not want to live on the base. We wanted to live out in town and experience the Spanish culture at its fullest. However, I now realize, that living on the base with all of our friends as neighbors was one of the most special parts about our time in Spain. No where else will we ever live where we can pack up Fin in the stroller for game night down the street and walk back in the warm ocean air at 2 am. Where we can share a glass of wine on a friend's porch 5 doors down or ride our bikes to the bar to get a beer (or 3) and wobble our way home, laughing all the way. Where we can borrow an egg from a neighbor two doors down, or stop during a run just to chat or give advice. Chances are, I'll never again live in a place where I can conveniently run across the road to my best friends' house for "just 5 minutes" because the crazy story about my day is something she simply cannot hear over the phone.
So yes, saying goodbye to our home; a home where we changed, we grew, we traveled, we laughed... so many special things had happened... was very hard.
The good thing about knowing an impending move is coming, is that you can prepare yourself. You can buy the things you want to buy, see the last few things you want to see, do the last things you want to do, say the things you want to say. I had LOTS of "must-do" items on all of these lists.
A few more relaxing sunsets strolling and combing the beach was one of my "must-do"s. :)
A few more warm evenings of chasing Fin around the yard before his tub was another.
Saying goodbye to all my plants and making sure they went to good homes was also on the list. (You see, knowing that our home was scheduled for renovation/reconstruction was pretty disheartening to me. I knew if we ever saw it again, it wouldn't be the same place, and I worried about my gardens that would probably end up carelessly bulldozed over.)
It was sad watching my little cacti dug up one by one by one and taken away, but atleast I knew they would be enjoyed by someone when we were no longer there to enjoy them ourselves.
And then eventually, regardless of whether or not I felt ready... moving day came. Moving day came, and I was well equipped to handle the stress and sadness. Thank goodness for 9AM bellinis.
Fin loved watching all the boxes go, but especially loved being his social self with all the movers. They even let him get up on the truck before they hammered all the crates shut. In his usual style, he couldn't resist the opportunity to applaud himself.
His last game night with the Turners...
And the DAY of our scheduled flight out of Spain and back to America... our last lunch and afternoon with Tita Rocio and Abuela Ana.
So after a loooooong transition (October 26, 2012 through February 4, 2013, to be exact) we are finally in our new home in the beautiful Northwest. So far, it is wonderful living here in Washington on Whidbey Island... but... we miss our friends.
So without getting misty-eyed, I will conclude with a few pictures and this classic quote:
"Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver, the other is gold."
