We've moved so many times, and I don't want to start forgetting, my memory being as poor as it is, about the many different places we've lived. I'm going to write about each of them briefly so that even if they don't stick in my mind, they will still be remembered somewhere.
We moved into a 2 bedroom unit two doors down from where Tyler lived when we dated and were engaged. There were 3 attached units, and one separate little house, and all the units shared a yard. We lived across the street from the UofA - an incredibly convenient location! We were also lucky to be surrounded by friends. Tyler's old roommate and good friend of ours, Boyd, and his new roommates (the two guys whose apartment we had lived in for a couple of weeks), Tyson and Nathan, who I'd known and spent plenty of time with over the last few years. The next unit over had Dave, Tyler's best man, and DJ, a great guy who'd just moved into the area. Keith lived alone in little house directly across from our door.
We moved in with our second-hand, well worn, green couch that Tyler had fixed up a bit, our wedding gifts (including 5 crock pots), our new queen mattress that we put right on the floor, and not much else. Soon we got some remnant carpet to throw over the white, chipping laminate floor in the living room. Slowly we added a table and chairs we got from my parents' storage area, a particle board TV unit we bought at BigLots, and a few things here and there we bought at Target with some of the money we'd gratefully received when we married.
We felt, or, at least, I felt a weird combination of mature and clueless. I loved the idea of making our little place homey, but guess what I never expected? Tyler cared! He wanted to be involved in deciding what we bought and where we put it. I was so surprised by that!
We had the quirkiest landlords - an older couple who had owned the place for decades. They had their way of doing things, and some rules that made us shake our heads, but they were dear people and we really grew to appreciate them. One of their first quirks we became aware of was that they turned off the swamp coolers so they couldn't be used anymore at the end of September. In case you don't already know, October in Tucson, AZ is, basically, summer in most normal places. It's still unpleasantly hot, and every night after the sun set, we would feel the heat seeping out of the un-insulated brick walls to fill our little place with hot, heavy air.
We lived in this place for years - from September 1999 until May 2004. During that time, Tyler went from Pima CC to the UofA, worked as a haul truck driver at Silverbell mine, a waiter at Last Territory Steakhouse, a limo driver, a lab tech in a fly lab on campus, and as a snake catcher for a study. I worked at Y.E.S. as an after school program teacher, and, in 2001 I left my job to stay at home and welcome our first child, and then, in 2004, our second. Tyler also fell head over heals for Ultimate Frisbee, played for the UofA, and traveled all over the west for tournaments. At church, Tyler served in our first family ward as an Elder's Quorum counselor, as a Primary teacher, and as Scoutmaster. I served in the Young Women's program with the Beehives, had a brief stint as Scoutmaster in our newly formed ward, and then in the Nursery.
Our years there we hard! And fun! And great! And hard! We were sad when we heard the whole building and lot was taken down, and another parking lot was put in it's place! We'll never get to take our kids to see their first home - isn't that sad?
We moved into a 2 bedroom unit two doors down from where Tyler lived when we dated and were engaged. There were 3 attached units, and one separate little house, and all the units shared a yard. We lived across the street from the UofA - an incredibly convenient location! We were also lucky to be surrounded by friends. Tyler's old roommate and good friend of ours, Boyd, and his new roommates (the two guys whose apartment we had lived in for a couple of weeks), Tyson and Nathan, who I'd known and spent plenty of time with over the last few years. The next unit over had Dave, Tyler's best man, and DJ, a great guy who'd just moved into the area. Keith lived alone in little house directly across from our door.
We moved in with our second-hand, well worn, green couch that Tyler had fixed up a bit, our wedding gifts (including 5 crock pots), our new queen mattress that we put right on the floor, and not much else. Soon we got some remnant carpet to throw over the white, chipping laminate floor in the living room. Slowly we added a table and chairs we got from my parents' storage area, a particle board TV unit we bought at BigLots, and a few things here and there we bought at Target with some of the money we'd gratefully received when we married.
We felt, or, at least, I felt a weird combination of mature and clueless. I loved the idea of making our little place homey, but guess what I never expected? Tyler cared! He wanted to be involved in deciding what we bought and where we put it. I was so surprised by that!
We had the quirkiest landlords - an older couple who had owned the place for decades. They had their way of doing things, and some rules that made us shake our heads, but they were dear people and we really grew to appreciate them. One of their first quirks we became aware of was that they turned off the swamp coolers so they couldn't be used anymore at the end of September. In case you don't already know, October in Tucson, AZ is, basically, summer in most normal places. It's still unpleasantly hot, and every night after the sun set, we would feel the heat seeping out of the un-insulated brick walls to fill our little place with hot, heavy air.
We lived in this place for years - from September 1999 until May 2004. During that time, Tyler went from Pima CC to the UofA, worked as a haul truck driver at Silverbell mine, a waiter at Last Territory Steakhouse, a limo driver, a lab tech in a fly lab on campus, and as a snake catcher for a study. I worked at Y.E.S. as an after school program teacher, and, in 2001 I left my job to stay at home and welcome our first child, and then, in 2004, our second. Tyler also fell head over heals for Ultimate Frisbee, played for the UofA, and traveled all over the west for tournaments. At church, Tyler served in our first family ward as an Elder's Quorum counselor, as a Primary teacher, and as Scoutmaster. I served in the Young Women's program with the Beehives, had a brief stint as Scoutmaster in our newly formed ward, and then in the Nursery.
Our years there we hard! And fun! And great! And hard! We were sad when we heard the whole building and lot was taken down, and another parking lot was put in it's place! We'll never get to take our kids to see their first home - isn't that sad?
