August 2020: I wrote this out last Fall and just never finished or posted it. Here we are one year from our move and I tried to finish it and give the basics because I do love having the blog to look back on! Who could've ever guessed what this last year would hold!? But here we are... God was faithful then and He is faithful now.
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November 2019: This post is very delayed. I haven't been blogging, except for trying to keep up with the boys milestones, but it's probably because it was just too much to put into words or process. Back in August, I felt like I just didn't have the words.
We knew for almost a year that we were readying our family to move to Charlotte. To plant a church that would reach the university, much like Crosspoint does. We had lots of time to process, clean out, enjoy "lasts" in Clemson. And I think this can make it harder in a sense. When July and August came around it felt like we had been preparing to go for a while and the anticipation of leaving and change became harder than the actual changes were.
I cleaned out our house for months and months. I felt like I got rid of sooo much stuff. But when we were packing up in the end, I felt like I had stuff everywhere! And even moving into our new house, I still feel like we have stuff everywhere!
When it f.i.n.a.l.l.y became moving week, it was a roller coaster of events. We knew that once Sunday came, we would just have to jump in and hold on. Chad was scheduled to preach on our last Sunday. I always enjoy hearing him preach. Our family was then commissioned out at the end of the service.
(Rachel was so sweet to send me some pictures from the day!)
My parents ended up coming in for the day and were there with us.
That evening we had a members meeting. I always looked forward to those, but I had been dreading this one. Tara and I knew we would struggle through it :) We had the sweetest surprise going away party afterwards. Chad and I had no idea! We hugged lots of people... with very teary eyes! What a gift to love a place, a church, and people so much that it is hard to leave. Such grace.
We ended that day completely emotionally exhausted.... put the boys to bed and then sat and read cards and gifts we had been sent home with. We were so overwhelmed and thankful. Such full hearts.
Then came the final few days of packing up everything. I had said for years that moving with young kids sounded awful. But you just do it, and things get done.... but, honestly our kids were rockstars! Ages 2, 4 and 6 and I was so proud of them on both ends of the move (and the strange 3 months in limbo).
What started out like this... all organized and neat...
We knew for almost a year that we were readying our family to move to Charlotte. To plant a church that would reach the university, much like Crosspoint does. We had lots of time to process, clean out, enjoy "lasts" in Clemson. And I think this can make it harder in a sense. When July and August came around it felt like we had been preparing to go for a while and the anticipation of leaving and change became harder than the actual changes were.
I cleaned out our house for months and months. I felt like I got rid of sooo much stuff. But when we were packing up in the end, I felt like I had stuff everywhere! And even moving into our new house, I still feel like we have stuff everywhere!
When it f.i.n.a.l.l.y became moving week, it was a roller coaster of events. We knew that once Sunday came, we would just have to jump in and hold on. Chad was scheduled to preach on our last Sunday. I always enjoy hearing him preach. Our family was then commissioned out at the end of the service.
(Rachel was so sweet to send me some pictures from the day!)
My parents ended up coming in for the day and were there with us.
That evening we had a members meeting. I always looked forward to those, but I had been dreading this one. Tara and I knew we would struggle through it :) We had the sweetest surprise going away party afterwards. Chad and I had no idea! We hugged lots of people... with very teary eyes! What a gift to love a place, a church, and people so much that it is hard to leave. Such grace.
We ended that day completely emotionally exhausted.... put the boys to bed and then sat and read cards and gifts we had been sent home with. We were so overwhelmed and thankful. Such full hearts.
Then came the final few days of packing up everything. I had said for years that moving with young kids sounded awful. But you just do it, and things get done.... but, honestly our kids were rockstars! Ages 2, 4 and 6 and I was so proud of them on both ends of the move (and the strange 3 months in limbo).
What started out like this... all organized and neat...
turned into this... and we were just cramming stuff everywhere and throwing stuff in the moving truck. I love that it makes you clean out, purge, and organize, but moving is the worst.
We crammed in as many hang outs with the Denton family as we possibly could the last few weeks. Putt-putt, icecream, swimming until dark, Skytop... doing daily life with them was the hardest thing to say goodbye to. I felt like the last week we were just doing everything we possibly could together... last dental visits... want to come hang out in the waiting room with us? :) jk about that one (August 2020 addition: One year out and I'm so thankful Tara and I are still so close and communicate often, we definitely miss doing daily life with them)
August 14- MOVING DAY! Tara kept the boys all morning so that we could finish packing the truck and clean the house a bit. We left all of our furniture because the house was still on the market and we were headed to a missionary house. But this truck was STUFFED. (August 2020 addition: Caleb Wilson came and helped Chad pack the truck that morning and now he just recently moved here with us to Charlotte and is a part of King's Church. I love it!)
We prayed together in our driveway (again, the tears!) and then I stuffed the boys into our jam packed van and we followed Chad in the moving truck out of Clemson. At this point it felt like I could just let out a huge sigh. Allll of the packing and cleaning and goodbyes were done...
And the sweetest friends in Charlotte showed up at our missionary house that evening with dinner and flowers and hugs and ate with us and it was such a reminder that saying goodbye to community in Clemson was hard, but there can be sweet community here too. And there has been! What a blessing! Praise Him!
We spent 3 months in the Plaza Midwood area in a missionary house from First Baptist Church. We stuffed all of our house into this 1,000 sq foot (already furnished) home. We lived pretty packed in there! And we invited Mackenzie to come live with us there too for the last month... haha. I felt a little crazy.
As thankful as we were to have a stepping stone home to get to Charlotte in order to house hunt and get acclimated to big city life, we were so very thankful that after months of looking, we found a house we wanted to buy in the area we wanted.
This meant that in November we needed to go back to Clemson to get all of our furniture (our Clemson house had not yet sold). We got another moving truck and spent 2 nights in Clemson getting everything from there and then going and getting everything from the missionary house to take it to our new house.
the last night in their bedroom in Clemson...
so thankful that they thought the moving truck and their own Gatorade made this the best day ever...
And mid-November, finally getting to settle and build community in our target area. We were so ready to be settled and jump into life here! (August 2020 addition: And bonus, we love our neighbors! The boys play outside with several other sweet boys daily and have the best time together. One of the things I was fearful about in moving was how our kids were going to meet other kids, and the Lord provided for that in ways I couldn't have imagined!)
Whenever I thought about leaving Clemson, it just felt like we were transitioning to a whole new season of life. And that's been so true. Our Clemson house held newborn days, diapers, crawling babies, the pack and play... we were one of the families with little kids. And I feel like we left all of that! We have no more diapers, no pack and play, no high chair, and I am the "older mom" in most of our day-to-day situations. It just feels like we transitioned to such a different role/life/season. The sweetest, smallest little town to city life. Our first week here we had homeless people knocking on our car windows, Grayson reading bad language on the playground equipment...stuff I'd never dealt with in Clemson! Clemson will forever hold such a sweet place in our hearts and wonderful memories. But Charlotte is good too... we love our new neighbors, our small group here, and the exciting things going on with King's Church. I've decided it's ok to grieve what we left, and also be excited about what's ahead.
