Farewell to Our City
leaving salt lake was harder than i ever, ever imagined. i had been saying for a while that i wanted to leave and start new somewhere but when the time actually came, i was distraught! salt lake means so much to us and is really the foundation of mine and riley’s relationship! all of our memories (other than traveling) are there. we have so many friends, so many traditions, so many stomping grounds! before we moved, i talked to my mom on the phone a lot and she reminded me how much i did not want to move to utah when i was a freshman in college! it’s true…i hated utah! mostly because i had only spent time in provo ;) little did i know how much it had to offer! my attitude quickly changed when i met my best friend Amy in one of our design classes and i finally had real friends to do fun things with! that first year of college was such a blast and are some of my very favorite memories of utah. then, of course i met riley and his roommates and i started to become a U of U fan and everything changed! that year seems like a blur but also holds some of my most cherished memories. i made and lost a lot of friends in college because girls are crazy and dramatic but i am eternally grateful for the ones that stuck around– the real ones! my second year in salt lake, i really started to explore and venture out and experienced what the city and mountains are all about! me and riley went on late night in n out runs, went to concerts together, drank tea, cooked in our kitchens together, ate at the pie at 1 a.m., went to sporting events, drank hot chocolate in the car looking over the city; he even let me drive his car whenever i wanted to! this city is where our relationship was built! then we got married! we got our first apartment together (which we lived in until we moved to seattle), finished school together, bought our first car together, had christmas together and slept under the christmas tree on christmas eve. utah is where i fell in love with snow and where i learned how to ski and snowboard. i’m going to miss utah’s snow. we got our sweet angel puppy! he helped us explore the outdoors even more. we would have never gone to so many places if it wasn’t for koda. it makes me sad to think that koda may never go back to his favorite park by the capitol. we built friendships with people we will be friends with forever, no matter where we are in the world. i love and miss those people everyday. we rescued a stray cat who caught a mouse in our kitchen one time. she keeps us so entertained and i’m not sure why so many people asked us if we were taking her with us to washington?? haha! i had so many amazing opportunities because of the job i had. i learned and grew and made connections and met famous designers and made best friends and had clients who i love! i know, i’m making it sound like we will never go back. i know we will all the time because we love it so much but it’s hard because we probably won’t ever live there again. which i shouldn’t care about because i want to live in california forever, but all of our friends are in utah. it’s hard to imagine that we can make friendships again like the ones we have in utah. we have been so incredibly blessed to have had the experiences we had in utah and salt lake. we were so blessed with amazing friends and jobs and a great ward, and just so many amazing opportunities. i’m enjoying seattle but when i think about utah too much, i still cry because i miss it. it will always have an extra special place in both of our hearts!
Before we left, I had my friend Heather take our pictures downtown so we can have them to remember our city by! We went to some of our favorite spots in this little city. These pictures are so special to me. Thank you Heather!!