2026 - Home Again...

 After nearly 10 years in Texas, we are headed home...back to the "Golden" State of California...

...but first we spent our final week in Austin enjoying some last minute food and sights.

We had been packing for weeks...garage is FULL, every closet is FULL...of course I used the opportunity to create a huge excel worksheet of all of our belongings, over 400 boxes of things!  Even though I have been selling/donating/discarding, there will be more to do back home.  

The one thing we paid the moving company to pack is our kitchen.  That would have taken me over the edge! 😳

The next day the moving truck showed up...

Our dear cleaning lady, Laura came to do a final deep clean, and then we were off...

We spent two nights on the road this time.  First stop in Las Cruces, NM (our usual Best Western), and then in Phoenix, AZ at Phyllis & Beau's house...to meet Daisy!

We arrived back to Torrance on the 4th of July...just in time for a BBQ at Lester's!  We picked up Luke from Amy's and headed over to have him meet Kira for the first time...curious...

 

Two days later, on the 6th, our movers showed up and filled our house up!  We also made a trip down to storage to gather furniture and other belongings from my parents' house and various trips out here.  Now begins the labor of unpacking all while workers are still getting our house in order.  Sadly, we did not have a good experience at the end with our tenants and there is much to be done and project lists being compiled.  Luckily we are now retired, and we can't plan any more vacations until we sell the Leander house.  We already have a trip to South Africa that was planned over a year in advance, which has cost us an arm, leg, and torso!

I just re-read a "journal" of sorts that I had written when we first moved out to Texas.  I should have been blogging back then.  People ask us all the time if we are glad we are moving back?  How did we like our time in Texas?  etc...  

In summary, it was a great 10 years, it went by fast!  It helped us branch out of our "bubble" and experience living in another part of the country, which I wish everyone had the opportunity to do.  We truly empty nested, met wonderful people, made new friends, and tried many new things.  We made Texas our starting point for great road trips and got to see areas of the US we probably would not have made it to....and we made it through the pandemic intact, while completing projects in the quiet of our "Texas bubble".  In the end we are grateful for the opportunity that Toyota gave us.

Now it's time for a new chapter!  We get to be hands-on grandparents, and enjoy our home again with new appreciation. 💗