So long Provo... Thanks for the Memories!

Hello Friends! Howdy from Texas! :-)  I've been MIA for the last little while as we celebrated the holidays, moved 1600 miles, and have begun trying to put our new lives in order!  I'll work on catching up for my own benefit later, but for now I wanted to post my journal from the morning we left Provo (12/29/11).  Hope everyone is having a great New Years! :-)

It’s 4:30 in the morning, the day we’re going to leave Provo probably forever, and I can’t sleep.  We’re moving to Texas today.  It’s what I’ve wanted ever since the day I left, in August of 2003 to come to Provo as a freshman at BYU.  I loved going to BYU and living in Provo, but once I’d been here for a while I couldn’t wait to leave and move back to Texas.  Now that the day is finally here, it’s harder than I thought it would be.  We moved everything out of our duplex yesterday and got it all cleaned out with the help of Spencer Whitham (our next door neighbor), Bridger & Stacy Larson (our best friends and former neighbors), and my Mom & Dad.  It was weird seeing it so empty after living there for 3 ½ years.  I will really miss that place.  We’ve had some great memories there.  I think that’s how I feel about Provo too.  I couldn’t wait to get out of here and to move on, but now that it’s finally happening, I feel sad to leave.  Provo has been such a great place to live for the past 8 years.  I’ve met so many incredible people, made some of the best friends, had great experiences, and learned a ton.  Even though not every experience has been a good or happy one, and we’ve definitely had some tough times, I’ve still learned and been shaped by every experience.  I know it’s time to move on, and I’m really excited for this next chapter of our lives, but it’s still hard to leave.  While we’ve been preparing for this move and saying goodbye to people and eating our last Betos or Café Rio, I keep thinking of the words of a song from a few years ago… “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”  Moving to Provo to begin college was such a scary experience for me, and yet, looking back now I can see how right it was, how much I would learn and grow from that whole experience, and how it would change me forever.  I’m so glad I went through that scary beginning to get to the great life I’ve had for the past 8 years.  BYU and Provo will always hold a special place in my heart.  It’s where I met Chris.  There aren’t enough words to describe how blessed my life has been since I met and eventually married that incredible man.  He is everything I need, and I love him more than anything.

            I was thinking about listing some of the people I’ve met who have become my best friends and who have impacted my life the most, but I know there would be some I would forget.  I think there are a lot of people who I have learned from and who have blessed my life that haven’t even been best friends, they are just the people I’ve encountered on a day to day basis at school, at church, at work, at the temple, etc.  There really are great people here.

            So, now that it’s 5:00 a.m., I think I’ll try to get another 30 minutes of sleep before we’re up and headed out.  I’ll wrap this up by just saying Thanks.  Thanks to the friends we’ve made, thanks to the employers we’ve had, thanks to BYU for educating us, thanks to our wards for embracing us, but most importantly thanks to our Heavenly Father for granting us the opportunity to have such a great life here for the past 8 years.  It’s been a joy and I can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds…