The beginning to an end of an era

I'm not meaning to write this as a death post, but it's going to appear to be just like one probably.

Our beloved next door bff's/neighbors/kindred spirits moved away last week. It was pretty crappy. Haha, I laugh because it's so sad all I can do is laugh. Of course most of us here in Lincoln are transient students and we all know that the majority of our friends fit that category too. The Christophersons have just been sooooooo different. Jared reached out to Casey within a couple months of Casey's acceptance into Dental school (think back to Jan/Feb of 2012!). He answered so many of our questions and made us excited to move to Lincoln. It was like we were friends with their family before we even met each other. 

A Landscaping Conference/competition I had for school in the spring of 2012 was just a few hours from Lincoln so Casey drove out to me and we drove up to Lincoln stayed at their apartment (these kind souls we essentially didn't know at all) and they showed us a bunch of potential places to live around the area and brought us to our future ward with them (where everyone asked if Casey and Jared were brothers, no, but the year after Jared's brother did join us all, ha!) They were so unbelievably kind and it just felt like we were long lost friends meeting up. Their daughter, Julie, was around 18 months. I was so surprised at how fun it was to hang out with these total strangers. 

Fast forward to the summer of 2012. I'm pregnant, we're in New Jersey, no doctor, and I end up needing to fly to Lincoln for an OB appointment. Who drives an hour away to Omaha to pick me up, an hour back to Lincoln, drop off and pick me up from my appointment? Yep, Katie. That wonderful woman. Oh man how I am indebted to her forever for this and so many other reasons. I hung out her house, she was one of the first besides Casey to learn we were having a boy and was excited right along side me to see the pictures. She found joy in my joy and was I so immediately touched. She too was pregnant, less tun 4 weeks behind me and I remember it being SOOO fun to finally talk about pregnancy with someone! She made it all seem so real and fun and exciting. Oh yeah, and she had awful morning/daytime sickness with pregnancy and was still being oh so kind to me.

Fast forward a couple more months and we happened to move in right next door to them, I couldn't have been happier.

Over the next 3 years we spent, seriously, hundreds of hours together. We had Sunday dinners together for almost a whole year. We were always both pregnant together, then nursing together, chasing crawlers, walkers, and runners together. We had crying babies, naughty toddlers, and hilarious kids to laugh at. Misery loves company and boy did we ever talk about our motherhood misery (and triumphs!) together constantly, and talking about the bad with one another made it all kind of better. We'd knock on each other's doors for no other reason than to just hang out, constantly going back and forth between houses without any shoes. She was my first non family visitor in the NICU, We planned an insane amount of parties/get togethers in out backyard area together and would always help one another out with them. We sat outside watching kids play (and in my case yelling to come back), and talked about everything under the sun, you name it. We were constantly checking up on one another's activities, how this or that went, happy with each other in our highs and sad with each other in our lows.

We became those kind of friends that there's never an awkward silence together because it just wasn't. Each other's messy houses became not embarrassing to either of us because we just get it, it was like family, but even more than family (funny story, when Jared's brother moved in across the street after our first year here Casey was so worried we were being replaced by real family, ha. Luckily we were all great friends).

On the day they moved I kind of just emotionally detached myself from it all. I didn't want to be sad. It was kind of just a moving event that was happening I was just apart of it like everyone else. Not until I had to dang hug that girl goodbye was it truly awful. I was just oh so so so sad to have to say goodbye. Goodbye to what it's been like for 3 years. She'll never be next door again and that made me want to cry. Actually it did make me cry.

If there were such thing as sister wives, Katie would most certainly be my pick for a sister wife, ha.

I'm talking about my side of the story but Casey and Jared were bff's too. From dental school, video games (ugh), remote controls cars, politics, guns, and church. They were the perfect match of husbands for our perfect match of wives.

And then our kids. Well of course kids are always friends with everyone but these girls were such great playmates for Max. Julie was a great pseudo sister to Maxson. He love love loved following her around, wrestling, sharing toys, copying, he just loved her to the end. Always asking for "Jew-ee!" Grace and Max are less than 1 month apart in age and did everything together, crawling, walking, talking (ok Grace learned to talk like a year before Max but that's not the point, ha). They were such great playmates although disagreeing the same amount of time. Max's deep grunt/scream was the perfect opposite to Gracie's high pitched scream. Max loved her oh so much and would constantly go up to hug her while she would scream and push him away and then he would push her back and his hug quickly turned into a pushing fest with Grace running away crying,, it made us all laugh. And then little Allie, Max would always go up to give a tender hug and a kiss on her head, always. He just loved that baby girl with such a sweet heart. 

Like I said this was not meant to be a death post but in some ways it just is. Our beloved friends have moved on and it is sad. We will most undoubtedly see them for the rest of our years of life but it will never be the same, it will never be next door to each other. It was the absolute BEST and I couldn't have wished for better next door neighbors.

We love your stinking guts Christophersons!!!!!!!!!!!!! We hope you fail and have to come back to school for another year ;) 

Moving day was sad :( Even Gracie agreed