I'm not sure I  ever got around to mentioning that we moved.  I mean there was the small matter of buying our first house last November

and moving to a new city, new schools, and friends but right in the middle of painting projects

and dreams of French doors and wrap around porches  something amazing happened...James was offered a faculty position with the University of Idaho. 

So 7 months after buying our home and making some of the best friends:

we packed up and left our new home, new city, and new friends and headed across the country to exotic Idaho.   Back to the first town we lived in when we were first married, before we had kids, back to the university James attended and received his undergrad degree from, back to the mountains, the snow, and more importantly closer to family.

 It took 5 days to drive across the country.  There were lots of tears, moments when I threatened to turn the car around if the kids didn't stop fighting, hours of long jam sessions to the radio.  We memorized every word to Anna Kendrick's cup song "When I'm Gone."  It came on the radio so often that it became our theme song.

 The camera was passed around from kid to kid so they could take pictures and pass the time.

 It was long and arduous, but we arrived to overjoyed grandparents

and a doting aunt with only boys who doesn't mind getting creative with hair.

And we arrived just in time to celebrate this sweet kid's 10th birthday.  Who's favorite thing to do  on her birthday was  kayaking with Aunt Marilyn on Fish Lake.

And then we found some time to soak in the beauty that is Idaho and spend time with family, after all, that's what life is about and why we took a leap of faith and followed our hearts when it made more sense financially to stay in Tennessee...and I'm so glad we did.  We couldn't be happier, unless...

 

 

we all of our family and friends decided to move to Idaho (and to be honest, I'm working on that starting with these sweet nephews...one and forty five minutes is still too far away.  (  =