Leaving Home...

A little over 6 years ago we moved to Elkhart, Indiana. It is kinda weird to think back on that time, I was a young 24 year old girl, with two babies, a sweet husband, and we were embarking on the biggest adventure of our lives.
When we first got here I hated it. I was convinced we had made a huge mistake. Everything about this new  place made me want to cry. It was so foreign to me, I had spent my whole life out West, and the Midwest was so different. I don't remember when my feelings for this place started to change, but gradually they did change, and before I knew it I felt like I was home.
The time has come to leave this place that we have called home for the past 6 years behind, and I am not going to lie I am sad, not a little sad, sad like I have forced myself not to think about it too much because it hurts, sad.  So before we leave I wanted to write a post to say "goodbye" goodbye to our home, and the people who have made my experience here so wonderful.
 First off I want to thank and  say goodbye to our Elkhart 2nd Ward family (in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we call our congregations wards). Thank you for your examples of kindness, selflessness, and love. We loved our ward in Reno so much and when we moved here we didn't think that we could love our  new ward as much as we had loved our previous one. We were pleasantly  surprised to find a group of some of the best people we have ever known. We love you all and we will miss you, and if our new ward in Texas is full of people half as good as all of you we will be happy.
Next I want to say goodbye to my friends at Woodland Elementary School. When Landon turned 5 and was getting ready to start school  I was a little hesitant to send him off to all day Kindergarten to spend the day with a bunch of people I didn't know. What I found at Woodland was a great learning environment full of some of the  best educators I have ever known, people who genuinely care about their students. Thank you for giving me such a positive introduction into the public school system, and thank you for allowing me to be part of your school community. I will miss you guys so much! Also I don't want to leave out Miss Debbie, our much loved preschool teacher, I don't know if Levi will ever forgive us for moving before he could finish at least a year in your class.
Lastly I want to say goodbye to the Smiths, we know we will see you all again, but it has been such a great blessing to have lived so close to you all for the past 3 years. It makes me so sad to think  about my kids growing up without any of their cousins around. We love you and we will miss you like crazy!

I know that I have have missed people, so to everyone that has contributed to our wonderful experience in Indiana over the past 6 years, thank you! Part of me doesn't want to go, but I think that is how you are supposed to feel when something good comes to an end.

*I started writing this post a few weeks back before we moved, but packing, Jared graduating (that's right! he is Dr. Jared Peterson now!), moving across the country, Jared starting a new job, and the kids starting school all got in the way of me posting it until now. Sorry!*