October 15, 2009

I missed the exact date and now I am 6 days off, but we have now officially lived in NC for 5 years! We moved here when Levi was 8.5 months old and Bruce was 4.5. I can't believe how fast this time has seemed to fly by. On the other hand I can't believe how much we have been through or done in this time too! I try to tell the boys that they are from Joplin just like me, but all they know or remember is from Fayetteville. I feel like Matt and I have grown a lot too since moving here! Not in height (a little in weight), but mostly as Christians and in our marriage and maturity.


Levi started walking, talking and growing here!  Bruce started school, learned to ride a bike and has started to mature here. We have gotten our first family pet (Bella) since living here and we have lived in 2 houses. Matt got his first truck here. He went to Haiti and Iraq (although he had already been there before) and got promoted to E7 since living here. I volunteered in the PTA, FRG, at church and more in the past 5 years. I went from barely going to walmart or the mall and now I can actually navigate all over the town, and if you know me well you know I am good with directions and it is a big deal for me! I got to see the mountains and the ocean for the first time, and other times after that! We have traveled back to Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa and even Oklahoma since living here too and I feel very experienced with traveling due to the very long trips that we have made! We have had a variety of visitors here too. We have had winters with no snow and 80 degrees on Christmas and a few with a couple inches or so. We had 1 winter with an ice storm and this past winter we had a few snow "storms". We have had 100 days of over 100 degrees or more in the summer and no rain, which was the first few summers we lived here! We have picked Matt up and dropped him off at midnight or around there several times. We have said see you later and welcome back several times, which sometimes was for weeks, months or even close to a year. We have met so many people here, some that we still talk to and some that we have lost touch with. We miss our families and the get togethers they have, along with reunions, weddings, birthday parties, holidays and more.


I could keep writing everything we have experienced here, but I will not! I just wanted to get a few things down that have happened in the past 5 years! Who knows how much longer we have left to live here, but we will enjoy our time here and the times that we get to be together.