A Chapter Ends: Good-Bye Independence, Kansas!

The last couple weeks in Kansas were HARD! Saying goodbye to the great friends we made over the past two years was definitely hard. Here are some of our favorite faces and places that we had to leave behind.

Hazel just loved her year of preschool with Mrs. Allison Daily and Mrs. Jessica Belt.


I always loved watching Hazel hug and kiss her little brothers goodbye before she confidently walked into preschool by herself as I took off to try to keep up with Mr. Speedracer.


These are some of our favorite buildings that we passed on those frequent walks/rides down Maple St. The Presbyterian Church.


The library, with such a great children's floor up top. The best small town library I've been to!


The quaint Episcopal Church, where they held the monthly CUFF dinners (Community United Feeding Friends) provided by a different Church in town every month. I enjoyed walking down there to drop off a crock pot of something or a pile of cupcakes, made by Elodie with love.


Picturesque, old, brick houses.






The kids' favorite place on Maple Street was definitely playing outside with the next-door neighbors: Mariah, Lisa, Harmony, Memphis, Denver, and Quinton.












Xander and Elodie loved Mrs. Vicki Clifton, their loving, talented, generous, fun piano teacher. She was a great blessing in our lives and I appreciated her friendship and example through adversity.


We're all going to miss our wonderful Independence Ward family. I sure love those primary kids, teachers, and leaders. Oliver was struggling with the Nursery adjustment, but was happy to sit next to his big sister in primary!


We were happy that we got to enjoy another Cinco de Mayo fiesta with our amazing friends, the Krause family.










So many wonderful faces I didn't capture--playgroup friends and MOPS friends, kids' teachers and classmates, so many people who blessed our lives while we got to live in Independence! We will miss it!

Another HARD part was desperately trying to finish the attic to help the house sell. We just didn't think a work-in-progress attic would cut it. We were SO grateful for help from these fun and self-sacrificing missionaries, Sister Girard and Sister Frederiscksen!


Aaron worked like a slave up there.


Xander was a great assistant and spent many hot, sticky, dusty, even smelly hours up there at Dad's side.


Of course packing up the entire help with this little "helper" was pretty hard, too!


Kansas was a great chapter of our lives, with some hard work and hard goodbyes there at the end!