This past weekend was a bit bittersweet. For a lot of reasons. There were people who weren’t there we missed. There were people who were there that we appreciated oh so much. And, for me, there was saying goodbye to a house.

A home really. Camp Waterloo is where I learned to call home these past twelve years. And although I kept reminding everyone that no, Thank God I didn’t grow up in this house, one house, because as it turns out that’s why I’m not so sad about leaving. But, as I thought more and more about it, I realized I’ve called Michigan home, Camp Waterloo home, Seymour Road home longer than any house before it.

Sure, I didn’t move to Michigan until I was in the seventh grade. Sure I was twelve-going-on-thirteen, and I only lived there until I was eighteen. But it’s where I came home to, Christmas after Christmas, in college, after college, into my twenties. What they don’t tell you is in your twenties, I think, you really find a home in the house your parents live in. You really crave that I am safe. I am here, feeling that is hard to find elsewhere when you’re living in a dorm, or with roommates.

I’m twenty five, which means my parents have lived in that house for twelve years. And I am sure that the next place they live will elicit the same feelings in me that Camp Waterloo has. And I’ve made a home with Jeff, and it gives me that same safe, here, home feeling I used to crave from Michigan.

I can’t wait for my parents to live in Chicago. To live in the same place as my sister where I can gather my family all at once. Somewhere that I can walk outside to a Dunkin Donuts, and somewhere we can go out to eat without driving thirty miles. I am excited for them to have a new chapter of their lives. But that doesn’t mean I won’t miss Camp Waterloo.

I will miss wide open spaces. I will miss a big backyard. I will miss the bats in the walls, the front porch, the chicken coop foundation where Dad and Mikie knocked down the old chicken coop. I will miss the fire pit, and the nature, and the cats, and the old tin garage, and both side yards, and the fields. I will miss my sixteen-year-old-self’s painting of a sunset, and a moon rise. I will miss the potentially haunted east porch. I will miss the dark.

I will not miss the isolation, or the lack of Italians, or the spiders. Or the bugs. Or the steep staircase. Or lack of coffee joints. Or five mile drive to the highway. Or the mosquitoes in every room. Or the cold, cold, cold winters in a house that never quite gets warm enough. Or the “Shoot I forgot to get…” and knowing there is no way to get whatever ingredient we need. Or the haunted east porch. I will not miss the dark.

Before I drove away for the last time from the house I am sure I will one day drag my kids to see, I made my parents pose in front of the house. One last goodbye to a house that has done my family good. As we move on to a new adventure in a new state, I can’t wait to see what is ahead, but I will never forget Camp Waterloo, Michigan, and the friends, family, and person I became living there.

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Thanks to Jeff for taking all the photos of my beautiful, wonderful home.

My sister and I were talking about ideas for the seating chart cards, so I did a quick search of etsy for options. We came across this one.

And I said to my non-crafting sister, “I can do that.” And she said, “With birds?”

When I said, “I can do that,” I mostly meant “I can do that with some help of my craftier friends who know how to stencil and the like.”

And so, last night, before I packed my bag for the east coast, Traci came over and helped me make some delightful seating chart cards for the wedding.

First we started with some birds. Where does one get 20 different birds, you might ask?

Well, I was talking to my mom about the idea, and she said, “Oh well. I have a bird silhouette font, I’ll send it over.”

So folk, there you go. We’re bird people, you know.

Then we traced the birds that we had just cut out out onto pages of a book. You may remember this general idea from Nikki’s table numbers.

You may notice Alice Hoffman. We used Illumination Night, because it’s about the east, and my sister loves Alice, and because despite it’s sad tale, it is laced with sweet moments.

I cut traced, and I cut. Traci painted. She’s got talent, like that.

And there you have it! Stay tuned for gilding of the clothes pins…Big thanks to Traci for making this possible (paper cutting and all!!)