We sold our house on Mahan Loop yesterday. The first house we ever owned. I still remember how blessed we felt to get that house. We’d been looking at either junkers or very small houses because that’s all that was in our price range, and no matter how badly we wanted to get out of Newberg, we didn’t want it badly enough to put our money down on just anything.

Then 983 Mahan Loop came on the market. We looked at it for all of twenty minutes and made an offer. It was above and beyond anything we’d seen yet, in size and quality, and we just loved it. It needed a lot of work, but with the help of Eric’s family and mine, we got it painted and cleaned, and from then on it was just turning a blind eye to the unpaintable caulk and the nasty trim. The pretty blue walls and the wide-open floor plan made that easy to do, for me at least. Eric commented about the trim probably at least once a month. 🙂

We lived there for just over three years. That house saw us go to Australia and back, the trip of a lifetime. It saw me surprising Eric with not one, but two, positive pregnancy tests. It wrapped around us, cozy and dark, as first one boy and then the other burst into this world. We moved into that house as a couple; we moved out as a family. That house saw Eric grow his business, so much so that the lack of parking was one of the biggest reasons we decided to move on. It saw baby showers and Sunday lunches and late-night conversations. It hosted various of our out-of-state siblings and their families. It listened as we learned how to be parents. (It heard a lot of late-night crying.) It became our home, a safe place, a place to always return to. For a while every time we walked in the door, Alec would say excitedly, “We’re home!”

I always thought I would be really sad to sell that house. Then I paid two mortgages for a couple months, and that took care of that problem. 🙂 Really though, we absolutely love our new house. It feels like God gave us what we thought we couldn't afford . . . a little place in the country with lots of room for a growing business and growing boys. And so we thank Him.

A "goodbye, house" post doesn't feel complete without a bunch of pictures, but I tried several times to pick a few and got completely overwhelmed. Three and a half years doesn't fit neatly into a blog post. So I'll settle for a few firsts and lasts. 🙂

And of course a few pictures of my favorite part of the house . . . the main area. 🙂Eric built so many things around that house . . . cool shelves in the master closet, a bunch more shelves in the laundry room, drawers in my nearly-drawerless kitchen, a beautiful clothesline, a lovely big deck, and two runs of cedar fence. My one consolation in leaving all those beautiful things he built is that I'm taking the builder with me. 🙂 🙂

The builder, and the boys.

A house is just a house; the people inside it are what make it a home. I'm so glad for the people in my house.