It's almost two years, from the time we signed the papers in a small escrow office on Lee Hwy, to purchase the property at 5501 N. 36th Street. Today at 3pm, again we are going to sign the papers to transfer the ownership of the property.

I still remember the long weekends, with all-hands-on-deck we worked at the house. We removed lighting fixtures, appliances, anything that we can re-used before the demolition. During the construction, since there were so much rains during the summer of 2009, many times we had to pump the water out of the basement. Lugging the heavy industrial pump and awkward shape across mud was not like easy walk in the park, we found out the hard way. When the house framing took shape, we went there to remove the tree branches. Once the house was done, we removed and installed the beautiful brass door locks & levers. We fumbled our way through installing the built-in kitchen appliances. We put in wine fridge, microwave for the wet bars, and swapped in the elegant kitchen faucets. We then designed the basement layout, the deck and patio. Many days, we waited at the County office to get the permits, and also skipped work to meet with the County inspectors. Bảo & Thuỵ had their first lesson in laying tiles and installing laminated flooring when we tackled the basement. We then did yard works, designed the landscaping, shoveled and wheelbarrow-ed big mound of mulch. We even seeded the grass in the back, planted the trees, flowers and annuals. There was one evening, when we had the power outage, we went there taking the refuge for few hours. Bảo & I had cold shower there, since the water heater was off and we did not turn it back on until afterward; Duh! I still remember Huân's attraction was to turn on the fireplace in the family room.

So many days we had worked there, on the property, and each time the attachment gets a bit stronger. Last night, we went there to remove few last items, and prepare the property for the new owner. As I remove the keys off my key chain, could not help but to look over the fireplace in the family room, the behemoth fridge which took us a long time to install, the dining room with recessed build in wine rack  & wet bar, built-in book cases in the library, the deck, patio ... for the last time. We put the keys on the kitchen counter, turn off the lights and left. A missing feeling, a quiet sentimental moment set in. As we drove away, I glanced at the rear view mirror, at the blue-stone front and brick colonial house we built, for the last time.