Goodbye Charlotte

We have such wonderful friends.  We would not have made it through all the packing and moving without the help of our dear friends!  Some brought us food when our refrigerator stood cleaned out and empty, and others let us spend the night in their houses even though we came complete with nausea and vomiting bug!  That’s when you know someone is your true friend – when they will let you sleep in their guest bed even though you come bearing scary germs!  Thank you all, dear friends!  

By sheer force of will, we got our house totally empty and we are ready to leave.  We have all been so happy here that it is terribly sad to leave.  Goodbye, Charlotte!  We have loved your people, your  preschool, your doctors and pediatricians, your teachers, your friends, your Harris Teeter (or should I sing ‘My Harris Teeter’?), your tree-lined avenues, your boutique children’s stores, your abundance of Targets, your Morris Jenkins commercials, and your weather.  We will miss feeling like home and knowing the way around, which Santa Claus to go see every year, who has the best Christmas lights and Halloween candy,  where to go to pick strawberries, where the best breakfast restaurant is, that the new Lilly Pulitzer store is coming to South Park Mall (I REALLY should not have gone to the mall that one last time – if I had not known it was coming, it would not be so hard to leave!), and your weather man with the deep voice that we always poke fun of on TV.  I will think of the jonquils I planted when it’s February, the cherry and pear blossoms in April, and the crepe myrtles and our lush zoysia grass in June.  Charlotte was truly a home for us for eight years.  I can’t believe I stood in my empty house and said goodbye today.  What adventures lie ahead, I cannot say, but I do know that our adventure in Charlotte was a good one.