But First... A Party!

We are about to wrap up our two-month stay at Chateau Stone Manor, which also means we are about to wrap up our two and a half year stay in Arkansas.

Can I just say...

Where the hell did the last two and a half years go?

It's certainly scary to think how fast time flies when I remember when we were living in a hotel for three weeks before we moved into our house here! I guess we are leaving the way we came in -- temporary housing!

But before we left, we were feted by our White Oak Trails neighborhood pals last Friday night.

There was amazing food, great beer (hello cold Bud Light Limes!) and wonderful, and as always, entertaining conversation. It's funny how the crowd always separates into boys and girls, just like we are back at the seventh grade dance! But... the only way one can talk about having more babies when husbands don't want more babies is with a separated crowd. :)

Sidenote: I was not one asking for more babies!

About 15 minutes in to the party, our hosts told us the new owners of our house were gone for the weekend so we were sneaking over to take pictures in front of it!

This is my neighbor Josh. It took us 45 seconds to take one picture at the correct angle. He also wanted to make the blog!

So our big crew walks over and yet again, I shed tears. It seems that any time I go back to the neighborhood, I cry. They are usually tears of sadness, of missing the house. Tears on this night were definitely of missing the house, but also of being terrified of never having great neighbors like this again.

I know I've talked a lot about our neighborhood and how lucky we were to end up there. And I promise I won't talk about this for the next 15 years. But I just need to say again... I will miss these people. I will miss the conversations. I will miss the kindness and the laughter.

Very rarely have I met another Allyson. I guess I had to move to Arkansas to THIS neighorhood.
Because that girl to my right is Allyson as well. 

And it wouldn't have been right if Rachel didn't become the Vudu Queen and literally test out each gal's fertility with a strand of hair and wedding rings...

Lis was loving this!

I can't lie, my reading scared the CRAP out of me as it said I had two girls and a boy and we had one more boy to come. I feel like that was when I had went from only wanting two beers for the evening, to immediately running back out to the beer fridge. I definitely needed another beer after that news. 

It was such a fun night and though it still makes me sad to be leaving, I had to remind myself how lucky we were that we picked this neighborhood to live in and had 2.5 years of memories with these people and their families. 

No one will ever be forgotten.

And thank God for Facebook! 

XXOO,

Allyson