As One Chapter Ends, Another One Begins…

This is the view I saw as I drove away from my soon-to-be former home on April 9, 2016

On July 1, 2004, my husband, Stewart and I moved into a new house with our two daughters, then ages 11 and 7.  It was a two-story brick house on a corner lot in a great neighborhood. It quickly became our dream home, a place where we celebrated birthdays, Halloween parties, and hosted holiday dinners. The day after our first Christmas in our home we welcomed a new puppy, a black and white Australian Shepherd Lauren named Oreo and a few years later we rescued a calico kitty from under a trailer at Sara’s elementary school that she promptly named Lilly.

Days turned into weeks, months and years. Our two cute little girls grew into kind, smart and beautiful young women. Sleepovers and Girl Scout activities phased into week long youth choir trips and summer camps. Memories of dance lessons, middle school and high school programs, attending the Hannah Montana concert the same week Lauren appeared in the Children’s Theater Christmas play remain along with Easter Egg hunts and midnight movie premieres.

As I think back about our time spent in this home, I remember when Lauren traveled to Germany at age 16 as part of an exchange program through Little Rock Central High School. Over the years, we hosted more than a dozen German exchange students through this program and enjoyed every minute of it. Lauren continued to pursue her love of foreign languages, graduating from college last year with a double major of International Relations and German and now lives and works out-of-state for a non-profit organization that coordinates seminars.

Since my husband and I both studied Journalism, it’s not surprising that our daughters both are “news junkies” and inherited our love of news, current events and film.  Lauren was on the Newspaper Staff at Central and Sara served on the Yearbook Staff. Both have attended conferences and conventions in these fields.  Every weekday night Stewart and Sara would watch Brian Williams on NBC Nightly news in the early evening and Anderson Cooper on CNN every night and Lauren would watch 60 Minutes with her father every Sunday night.  Sara is now a Journalism/Public Relations major in college and is looking into future internship positions at television stations.

As I look back over the years we spent living in our home, I realized we had many wonderful memories, including the trips we were able to take. Disney World, several beach vacations and a journey to Hawaii in January 2012 were places we were fortunate to travel to as a family. Now a new family has purchased the house and will make their own memories there.

Christmas 2007 in our home