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On Day 738...

As I begin packing for our move to Asheville it brings back memories of the many moves that have peppered my life up to this point. As a child moving was always a fun time... a new home, new neighbors, cool things about each house. Now, it is still exciting, but also a bit overwhelming as I think of all that needs to be done. If you care to keep reading here is summary of the many moves of Leah Krishnan Zetterholm:

1 & 2 - I was born in MN and my parents lived in a townhouse. I really don't remember it at all, other than in the pictures I have seen. My second house was in Apple Valley, MN. Again, I think more things about that house I have gathered from pictures and not actually memories. But I do remember the small hill on the side of our house that my brother and I used to sled down. The hill was only about a foot longer than the sled, but we had a great time anyway.

3 - When I was 4 we made the big move from Minnesota to Brigham City,Utah. My dad had been hired as part of a design team to design new rocket boosters after the Challenger blew up in 1986. We lived in a small motel until we were able to find our next house. All I remember is brown...

4 - Next was the tiny little duplex. I remember the ugly green carpet in the kitchen and my mom making my brother Ryan and I pit hundreds and hundreds of cherries while she canned them.

5 - We were now up to (almost) 4 kids and needed a bigger home. My parents built a huge house in Brigham City, which we all still affectionately refer to as "the old house". It had a trash compactor and I have a Precious Moments room. I remember moving in before the carpet was installed and having to walk to my room very carefully on Christmas Eve so as not to step on the nail strips.

6 - When I was 10 my parents decided to sell that house they had built and buy something smaller. We then moved into the "Fishburn house". This was the house that had all burgundy carpet and while walls. This is the house that we remodeled, added another brother and we also had a foreign exchange student. It was also here that my parents gave us a trampoline for Christmas... I loved that thing.

7 - We sold the Fishburn house and moved to a rental house while my parents worked on building a house. The "rental house" as we call it was small and I will be forever scared by the fact that my mom made the extra bedroom the school room and I got the storage close in the basement. 9 x 9 with no closet (yes, I measured).

8 & 9 - When I was 12 our landlord at the rental house wanted to sell it, so we ended up moving into a 36 foot travel trailer for what should have been a summer. We ended up living there for 4 years. As miserable as it was, it was where my brothers and I became best friends. We all slept in sleeping bags on the floor in front of the gas heater. The trailer was parked on the property of a camp in Liberty, UT, so during the summers I lived in a cabin with a few other girls and worked for the camp, cooking & cleaning.

10 - When I was 14-15 we lived at a friends house in Ogden, UT while they were on sabbatical in CA (he was a college prof.). This is the house where I started college, I remember walking to school in the snow & rain at 6:45 in the morning, in order to make it for my 7:00 class. I also had the horrible task of taking care of their cats while they were gone. I disliked cats before then... now I hate them.

11 - Back in the trailer, but in another location, this time in Huntsville, UT. We parked the trailer on the property of some wonderful friends from church. I remember going into their house every morning to take a shower and being deathly afraid to see one of their two teenage sons before I had had a shower.

12 - When I was 16 the legal battles were over. I remember the day they put the roof on in the snow, and sitting for hours staining the windows and logs for the house, and my brother and I standing on scaffolding 8 feet up holding each others wrists and leaning back to paint the 16 foot ceiling. I love this house, and even though I didn't move in until I was 16, it is still the house I think of when I think of where I grew up.

13 - Off to college in Purcellville, VA at 17, living in the PHC dorms. Great memories of 11:47 parties and IMing Drew for hours and enjoying the cool spring evenings. There were also the not so fun memories of fighting to stay awake reading or writing papers, but all in all, a great experience.

14 - After graduation in the Spring of 2002 I lived with a Hispanic woman in Hamilton, VA. I have tried to erase this experience from my memory. I felt like my time there was just walking on egg shells. She once yelled at me for leaving a glass in the sink and not washing it until I came home from work that day. I moved out as quickly as possible and...

15 - moved to the Kendall farm in Lovettsville, VA. I cleaned house in exchange for living there, and loved having the very unique attic all to myself. I had a great time living in the old farmhouse with 4 other guys and Mr. & Mrs. Kendall. The most memorable evening was walking into the house around 9pm and seeing Greg K. and a bunch of other friends (all male) dressed in women's pjs running around the living room acting out (and videotaping) their interpretation of a girl's sleepover. I still have nightmares about Greg in Mrs. Kendall's long, frilly,white nightgown.

16 - Next was our tiny one bedroom apartment in Winchester that I moved into the month before we got married. Even with its drafty & small windows, tiny kitchen and no so wonderful neighbors it will always be special because it was where we spent our first year of marriage.

17 - In November of 2003 we moved in the back of two pick-up trucks to Leesburg, VA. We have loved this apartment and we have made many wonderful memories here. It was here that we have made good friends great ones, and that first one that really felt like home.

18 - As we move to Asheville, NC we are exited and sad at the same time. We are sad that we will be leaving so many great friends behind, but excited to start this new chapter or our life and to see what God has in store.

L