Before, I'd never remembered moving with excitement. I was too young to remember the move from Kansas, my birth-state, to Nebraska. I've only heard stories of the move from Nebraska to Texas, with my two-week-old baby brother squalling because he didn't like his carseat. I faintly remember having to give up favorite stuffed animals to a box for the move across town in Amarillo, Texas.

Before, I'd never remembered moving with excitement. I was too young to remember the move from Kansas, my birth-state, to Nebraska. I've only heard stories of the move from Nebraska to Texas, with my two-week-old baby brother squalling because he didn't like his carseat. I faintly remember having to give up favorite stuffed animals to a box for the move across town in Amarillo, Texas. I do remember the move from Texas to a little hick town in Missouri, though since I was ten I didn't necessarily call it a 'hick' town. I just knew that I hated leaving all my best friends. I didn't like Missouri for a year, then we finally found some good friends. They in turn introduced us to a lot more goods friends! I remember quite well the move we made from our apartment in the back of a motel to a rental house my parents owned in the RV Park. I remember it because it was the day after a tornado had ripped through the town, leveling the square and leaving enough damage on the motels that they had to be demolished. We lived in that house for five years, way longer than planned. I remember disliking it, but it was made bearable by obvious blessings. We got to join a homeschool orchestra. We ran three years of track while living in that house. My brother played a year of baseball. We filmed a incredibly cheesy spoof of Lord of the Rings. I turned sixteen, turned eighteen, and graduated in that house. We started our tradition of annual Fourth-of-July parties there. We learned how to play Werewolf in our yard. But... Then came the Big Day. We'd owned some land closer to Springfield, Missouri, where all our activities were. We decided to build a house there. We'd started in August of 2007. In January, the house was done enough to move in. So we called three families to help us. Two other buddies of ours just showed up. And on the night of January 19, I was sleeping on a box-springs and mattress in my green room. Yes, it had no flooring down, yes it wasn't decorated, but it was my own. That counted a lot. It had been a crazy-busy day. We'd been packing for weeks, and in a day, with two GMCs, a truck, a big trailer, two minivans, and three cars, we moved almost everything out, using the entire day to do it. We unpacked the final load at night, stumbling over rocks and staggering into our house numb from the cold. We were busy, yes, but as with all teens, we found time to goof off. We shot comments and insults back and forth as we loaded vehicles. We yammered over lunch while huddled together and still freezing in our basement. We complained that we'd picked the coldest day of the year to move. I reflected on it that night in my journal. What made this move so different room all the others? I was moving into a house with my own room, I was looking forward to decorating it how I wanted it, we were finally moving to the country, and we were moving closer to small group, orchestra, track, baseball, and all my friends. The furthest we have to travel to a friend's house now is an hour, instead of two. Even though three months later my room is just now getting the floor, and they just installed counters in the upstairs bathrooms today, I still feel as happy about it as the day we moved in. I think that has been the first time ever I've been excited about moving.

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