Oh, the places I've lived

My parents were over today for dinner, just a stop on their way home. They are not often in the neighborhood, but they were coming from the Flagstaff area, and it was such a treat for us--especially the kids! My dad was showing me where they had been on Google Earth, and I had a little fun looking up my old hangouts. So I thought I'd post a few aerial photos of where I've lived.

Beginnings. This house in beautiful, lush Auburn, WA was my home from the age of 12-18. Many great memories were made on this 6 acre spot: YW camp-out, middle school video projects, rope swinging over the drop-off, trudging through the streams, hauling wood, digging ditches...okay so those last memories weren't quite so great! But boy, did they build character!

Apartment Life. This is a peek at Chad's and my first home together in Las Vegas in The Breakers apartments, from December 2001 to March 2004. Our building was in the middle of that cluster just east of the pool. That was the tiny 1 bedroom apartments where we started our lives together, where I studied for Nursing school, and finally graduated, and where we met our best friends, Rob and Jaime. Those were simpler times!


Home-owners. Our very first home purchase was made possible by the fact that Chad and I had decent jobs, and we found a conservative house before prices sky-rocketed in 2004. We bought this cute little 'cluster-home' in North Las Vegas while it was still being built, and lived the good life in a brand-new home that was under warranty!

Middle of nowhere. What is this a picture of? It's my parents' place near Redington, AZ, which actually isn't a real town, just a place on a dirt road. But my parents let me live there from September 2005 to April 2006, while Chad was in the police academy and while I was pregnant with Bree. Their house was undergoing major renovations at the time, which made for an interesting experience (mice in the Christmas tree, midnight snack trips to the freezing kitchen/porch), but I am so grateful to them for letting me stay!

Settled. We moved into our current house in Globe two weeks after Bree was born in April 2006. Chad has a great job as a highway patrol officer, and I spend my days being a mom and a homemaker. The house was a little bit of a fixer-upper, which is still a work in progress (and probably will be for as long as we live here!), but for the first time in my adult life I feel settled. I'm not always wondering about where we're going next, or what the next step is. It feels like home, and I like that feeling.