Texas or bust

This week has been a very hard one for our family.. our bestest friends have moved away. We found out about 6 weeks ago that Caleb was getting transferred because of a promotion (which is awesome) and that they were going to move to Texas ASAP. This all happened just days after we moved across the street, we knew this would happen but didnt realize how quickly and so the news was devastating, no really Im not being dramatic!
Our families have been friends for 5 years now, five years of dinners almost every Sunday and spending almost every Holiday together, 5 years of watching our children grow up together and watching each other have our babies (Jude and Malia) 5 years of a zillion hours of conversations. Tami and I spend an embarrassing amount of time on the phone each day! We talk pretty much all day. We talk through feeding and yelling at our kids to nap times and cleaning and ya Ill admit it even using the potty!! They have truly become our family I feel like Tami is a sister and the kids I feel like they are my own I just adore and love them so much and Caleb has been such a good friend for Rich and me too, we have looked up to them and learned from them.
It is not often that you find a whole family who meshes in every way with your family, wives get along, husbands get along, and kids get along. We have so much in common and enough not that we keep it interesting and not boring. I also dont think is common to find people who truly make you better people. When the Zimmies first had us over for dinner we came home thinking (and Im not kidding) that they were to good for us, we really talked about, well they wont ever invite us again! Im so glad they did, they taught us how fun Sunday dinners could be how to be better spiritually and financially and so many other things. I owe Tami my sanity during the whole adoption process, without her I think I would have either quit or gone insane, there were so many times that just her listening to me complain in pure frustration with some of the things we went through gave me the strength to move forward, I needed the encouragement. I often called Tami before I called Rich with good news ( I know horrible.. but he knew and always laughed) thats just how close we are.
I think Ive gone through every emotion in the last month, from sadness, denial, anger, frustration and now back to sadness and Im sure the rest will follow. The kids are just heart broken too which makes it harder on both sets of parents. Kaden and Elias made a deal with us parents that they needed 9 sleep overs before they moved and they got every last one of them done plus 1 extra on the very last night (there were a lot of late nights and sleepy boys this last month)!!!! They have had the best time this summer and I know now that their friends are gone that summer will not go as smoothly as it has, they have been playing pretty much all day everyday all summer now and it has been the easiest summer break I have ever had with them! I havent had to entertain at all! Its been awesome... I know that is at an end now and Im gonna have to figure some stuff out!
The last few days have been very hard, there have been a lot of tears. We have made sure we have spent a LOT of time together, they have had movers there all week so our house was kinda the hang out which was nice for the kids...and me! Yesterday while the movers were packing the stuff in the truck we ate every meal together played outside and when we realized it was time for them to go we all got pretty silent eating dinner and the tears started escaping and then the ugly cry came as we walked them to the door, we hugged said bye and watched them walk to their car, Kaden was bawling Maddie ran to the other room and I told her come wave bye and she yelled at me I CANT DO IT and she was just crying and crying but did come back to wave bye. After they pulled away we gathered on the couch and just hugged it out and cried for quite awhile. I have never seen Kaden so sad, it broke my heart. Malia realized we were all crying and started dancing and making us laugh which was so nice.
I have been asked over the last month "what are you going to do" which btw is very annoying but what am I going to do?? Good question, I feel like Ive lost a part of myself and figuring out how to live day to day without our normal Zimmie fix is going to be hard, but I know this is great for them and keeping that in mind and being happy for them knowing its hard for them too makes it easier for me. I just keep reminding the kids how great this will be for their family. We have been told so many times that we should just pack up and follow them which I find quite funny that people are so eager to get rid of us, like we would just pack up and follow... well dont think we havent disgussed that one! I wish it was that easy.
So its gonna be hard, anyone who has read my blog no doubt has read about the Zimmies a zillion times because they are such a huge part of our lives. I know keeping in touch will be hard but Im determined to not let our friendship slip away, I feel like its to rare to let it get lost between miles.
So to the Zimmers words truly cant express what you have meant to us or what you have done for us, never forgotten NEVER!! We love and miss you guys so much!
So heres a slide show from the last couple of days and then the last few years! OH to make sense of some, I had mentioned in an earlier post that we have been pranking each other since we moved here and we got the last prank in!!! I tagged their car with some Texas or bust and Honk if your horny.. naughty yes funny YES!! I did help clean it off though too! So enjoy the photos.. or cry through them like I did!