It's Day 11 of the March Slice of Life Story Challenge, and I'm writing a goodbye letter to our house in a series of memories since we will be moving in April.
When we left Pittsburgh to move back to our hometown area, it was hard. We were so lucky to have moved into the neighborhood we did in Pittsburgh. There were a lot of kids around the same age, and they played outside all the time. They played street hockey, flashlight tag, basketball, rode bikes, and put on neighborhood plays. All the adults became really good friends, too. When we first moved to Lebanon, we wanted a neighborhood that was similar to that. Since we were one of the first ones to move in, we didn't know what it would be like. It was a good sign when Ellen, just a few houses down, came over shortly after we moved in with cookies and a hello!
While it wasn't exactly the same as our Pittsburgh neighborhood since I went back to working full time and had less time to spend with the neighbors, and our girls were a little bit older than the other kids, we've considered ourselves lucky to have great neighbors. We love our culdesac - our house sits on the very end.
We hosted two big parties in the first year or two that we moved in. One was a wine-tasting party in December, and the other was a 4th of July party. We invited the whole neighborhood to both since it wasn't quite as big as it is now, and everyone knew each other. For the 4th of July party, Ed went all out with the fireworks, wheeling them down the driveway in a wheelbarrow. The guys had a lot of fun lighting them all! Since then, it's become a tradition to have a culdesac 4th of July party with giant fireworks. Ed just sits back and watches now! We love inviting friends and family over to see the fireworks, and everyone brings food to set up in Julie and Bill's garage.
At Halloween, we always sit in the culdesac with the neighbors around a fire pit and pass out candy together. We've even been known to sit in the rain under umbrellas! My friend, Jill, comes over every year and joins us since it's so fun!
At Christmas, I always look forward to seeing our culdesac all lit up. All the houses are festive and festooned with lights and decorations.
This will be another post, but I love that my neighbor, Julie, joins a couple of my other friends, Karan and Jill, every Monday here during Bachelor/Bachelorette seasons. She has been a very special neighbor, and it will be hard not to have her right next door!
We had a great last celebration not long ago, joining our neighbors on the other side of us for Kelly's 50th birthday. The Hollywood Casino party bus rolled down the culdesac and picked us all up for a night at the casino.
We were blessed to live in a culdesac with wonderful neighbors for 11 1/2 years. We will miss them. I hope they let us come back for some celebrations in the future!
Oh Holly, such a great neighborhood. We had a neighbors like that when we lived in Houston. It's fun to remember happy times with good friends.
ReplyDeleteHolly - how fortunate you are to have had such good neighbors. And I had to chuckle as I read your post today - this is the 2nd time that something I plan to write about is mirrored in what you have shared here. Great minds and all that! ;)
ReplyDeleteBest of luck with your move. Where are you headed?