Moving

7 years ago, almost exactly, I moved to Houston.  Cody was already living here doing an internship for a construction company called Harvey and was actually moving back to College Station to finish out his undergrad degree. I had just graduated from Baylor and was moving to Houston for my first teaching job at Yeager Elementary.  We got married that December.

Over the past seven years in Houston, we have learned to be married, become homeowners, worked hard on our house, become parents and I have finished graduate school.

We have both also completed 7+ years at Harvey and Yeager.  Who would have known at that point the wonderful first jobs that we had truly found.  Jobs that challenged us and helped us grow in our respective fields as well as finding lifelong friendships with our colleagues that we got to see every day.  We have made great friends also through our community and grown up a lot over the past 7 years.

Today, we will begin a new chapter of our lives back in Longview where we grew up.  We will close on our new home today.  We will be minutes, rather than hours from a majority of our family.  Cody will be working at a construction company in town and in August, I will be teaching 3rd grade in Pine Tree, the district we grew up in.  We are so blessed to be given such a wonderful opportunity.

It is with a mixture of emotions today that we will drive away from our first home, our first jobs and so many of our friends.  We are better people for the 7 years that we spent in Houston and know that we are saying "until we see you again" rather than "goodbye" to the friends that we are leaving behind.