Bill and I spent the day taking a trip down memory lane. So what better way to do that than to start at the beginning of the lane and walk forward to our life as it is today.
Our very first apartment was a tiny little furnished one bedroom, right in the heart of Tempe Arizona. And, more specifically, right in the middle of ASU college town…I will leave all that to your imagination…
We signed a six month lease so we had no choice but to suffer it out…
But, finally, we were able to move to Mission Springs Apartments, offering one, and two bedroom, furnished apartment floor plans. We decided on a two bedroom so we would have room for our kids.
The window to the right of the door was my Katie’s bedroom. She would sit in her room for hours talking on the phone with the window cracked open.. I smoked back then and would be sitting on the porch smoking and I could clearly hear everything Katie was talking about to her friends…mostly about things she shouldn’t be doing… When I would give her redirection about what she shouldn’t be doing…she would look at me with wide-eyed wonder as to how I always knew what she was up to… Hey, I think every mother has the right to use what ever comes their way to try to help their child not go astray…
Fast forward: My Katie moved out of our home…then one day, after church, my father came up to Bill and I and asked us if we would consider moving in with them because they were on a fixed income and couldn’t afford to live in the little two bedroom house they had and still afford to travel like they wanted to back and forth to Pennsylvania… Bill and I didn’t hesitate to accept the offer to help them because we were foot loose and fancy free then and were able to do a lot of traveling ourselves…we took a cruise to Hawaii, we traveled back east to visit family, we spent many weekends in our favorite of all places… San Diego… So, of course we agreed to move in with them and share expenses. This is the house on Navajo St that we shared tighter. We were all VERY happy with the arrangement we had. We all loved the house and the freedom we had to travel…
We were still living in this house when I was notified by one of my Katie’s friends, that she was concerned that Shantel was in danger… I contacted my Katie and told her about what I had been told…I asked her if she thought she was able to provide a SAFE home for Shantel. To my surprise she said NO. Long story short…(see earlier posts) Bill and I stepped up, and took guardianship of Shantel, which later lead us to adopting Shantel. An opportunity, and decision, we feel blessed to have been given. But, that decision meant we had to move, because ,this house was in an adult only part of Ahwatukee… So while my parents were away on a vacation…, Bill and I had to start looking for a house to buy in the family section of Ahwatukee, where we could raise Shantel… We could only hope my parents would be understanding when we had to tell them we needed to move out..
We looked and looked and found a home ,not far away, in a family area that allowed us to raise Shantel. This is the first home we shared with Shantel… We purchased this home for $86,000 (keep that price in mind). We fell in LOVE with this house, and it was well within our budget. It was perfect and nothing needed to be done to fix it…We were a HAPPY little family there.
But, tragedy struck.., when Shantel was diagnosed with cancer…, and my parents came to us and said “let’s sell our homes and buy a big house together and we will help you help Shantel … So we sold our home, and they sold theirs ,and we bought this split, four bedroom home, together where we had enough room for us all to spread out and also have room for guests…. And we thought we were all happy there until… we weren’t…When that blew up, seven years later, we decided, out of necessity, to split up, and go our separate ways…
Then, Bill and I found this house, in the same neighborhood as the first home we purchased to raise Shantel in..,.which was just like the first home we had before my parents convinced us to move in with them… and that we would later regret….and, this was a REAL fixer upper, and we had to pay $132,000 dollars for the same house we had before the “big move that we paid only $86,000 for… This is where we moved after the split with my parents and where we lived for the next 8 years.
Bill and I spent thousands of dollars fixing this house up just to make it livable for us.. We actually paid this house off and planned to live there forever. We were happy there until the HOA wouldn’t keep up their end of the deal and the neighborhood went into decay…That was when Bill and I made the decision to sell that home and move to an area that didn’t have an HOA. We sold that home in 2 days, and bought our current beautiful home, in Chandler the next week… This is where we live now, and where we are celebrating our 25th anniversary:
So after the trip down memory lane…what did we do..? Well, of course had to have lunch… We wanted to try a new place, Sleepy Dog Brewery in Gilbert.
Bill/Bro wanted to try their dark brews…so of course, I was the designated driver so he could taste their brews to his heart content… He had two but he said they were well worth trying…
This place is a cute local brewery, and throughout the place are signs that support the atmosphere they support for the people who come there…. like this:
Or this that says ” Come, sit, stay…”
The food was REALLY good, but NOT Weight Watcher’s friendly…Bill/Bro didn’t care…he said he was going to enjoy every bite…and he did!
I, on the other hand, ordered a burger, but had remorse when I saw how much food was on the plate,,
,
So…I had the self-control to take more than half of mine home,
which Bill/Bro (who knows, and agreed to be thrown under the bus), ate for dinner…,Because, after all, it is our 25th anniversary…
All in all, as usual, when Bill and I are together…, we had a fun-filled time, and actually took this picture of ourselves… we were laughing so hard, because this was our 3rd attempt, and when we finally thought we had the camera right…we were already beyond the point of self-control,,,
This was just a practice session to what will be our REAL celebration of our 25 years together which we already have planned to celebrate in our favorite stomping grounds…San Diego California in July… after that, I will share more of our 25th Anniversary…
Stay Tuned!
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