Well, after 4 really great years, our stay at IMT apartments has come to an end. I am serious when I say that we will truly miss our little one bedroom, 700 sq. ft home! So many great memories. As Kristen and I were going through literally everything we own and trying to decide what to do with all of our stuff, we realized two things…

1 – Wow, even though our place was super small, and we had taken pride in being “minimalist”, we had accumulated way too much crap. I had saved every receipt, bill, or anything deemed important since 2006. Our paper shredder overheated 4 times on me during the shredding process. However, we did have a few laughs when we looked at some of the old pre-Kristen purchases I had made. Namely the receipt I had found for $1700. In my defense…it was a trophy barracuda and never before had such a fish been caught off the coast of Florida. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it 🙂 Here’s an old picture of us with the trophy fish:

Another random thing we kept:

The second (most surprising) realization was how attached we become to “things.” I found myself finding it hard to give away a t-shirt that I have not worn or seen in 5 years. We are planning on taking 2 bags each to China… so we had to find a home for 98% of our stuff. Family, friends, and refugees in east Austin are the beneficiaries of Kristen and I moving overseas. I’m slowly realizing what it truly means to give up everything.

Here are some pictures from the move:

On moving day, these guys hung out on our porch the whole day!

They were literally coming up to the door and looking in, or trying to fly through the window. That had never happened before, and we couldn’t help but think it was a gift from the Lord — peace in the midst of a crazy time.