Home is wherever I am with you...

After living in Portland for over 12 years, our family is heading North to Seattle.  We are sad to say goodbye to our friends and this city we've grown to love, but we are excited about this new chapter in our life.  Whenever I pack up a home to move, it makes me reminisce about all the "firsts" we had there. 

Our sweet little blue house in Tualatin, we loved all 1060 sq feet of you and your 10,000 sq foot yard.  You were our first home and you were good to us.  We brought our first addition to our family home there (Deacon how we miss you) and held our first annual Yates Christmas party with seats running all the way from the sliding glass door to the front door and a rambunctious game of Pictionary.  You were good to us for 4 years and then we decided it was time for something a little bigger in anticipation of one day growing our family.

The Tigard house was where we went through our first major remodel and came out smiling on the other end.  It's also where we brought Merrick home and had so many firsts with him there.  First smile, first laugh, first roll over, first crawl, first step, first word... I could go on an on.  We also created friendships there that I know will remain strong even with miles between us.  It was hard to leave a home that created so many memories for us, but in 2010 we decided to make a bigger move and move from the suburbs to the city and to a home that was 70 years older than the one we were leaving. 

Rose City Park, you charmed us from the beginning with your location and sweet history.  Moving into a home that had been owned by the same family for over 60 years was a little intimidating.  To think of all the firsts this home had seen and the history it held for the family that was leaving.  While there were many things we wanted to change and update in this home, we didn't move as quickly as we had in other homes and some of the quirks came to grow on us and we learned to love you even more.  In this home we saw Merrick ride his bike on his own for the first time, where we sent him to Kindergarten and he learned to read and write and where he lost his first tooth. While there are lots of good memories in this home, there are also some sad ones as well.  After 12 years, we had to say goodbye to our sweet dog Deacon, I can only hope there are huge fields with no fences for you in doggy heaven. 

As I reminisce about each of these homes, I'm reminded of the song "Home" by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros because as long as we are together, happy and healthy, it doesn't matter if we live in a huge home or a tiny apartment. "Home is wherever I am with you".