Well, I love you.

"Is this all your stuff?" Dad was wondering how I had accumulated enough stuff to fill the four-foot stacks of bins that were ready to be loaded in Electra (my car).

"Yes. That's all my stuff. There's more in the basement." I also have a bookshelf and two end tables in Kearsen's upstairs, a folding table and folding chairs in the basement, boxes of kitchen supplies in Grandma's garage, and a twin size mattress in Grandma's basement.

I half-smiled. Tyrel began lifting one of five boxes of books. "Lift with your legs, Ty," Dad said. "Just set that there. Laurissa, do you have any odds and ends?" He had loaded two of the bins in the trunk already.

If Dad were to make it into the Guiness Book of World Records it would be Most Tightly Packed Buick. I began unloading a box of random winter clothes.

Soon we were out of large bins to pack. Dad told me we needed more stuff. And from there we stuffed the crevices in the back seat and underneath the passenger side seat.

"There. Now it's tight." He slammed the trunk. "Should only take one more load to move you for good."

That morning I left Sioux Falls for good, and my parents followed behind me until Des Moines where we ate lunch at a rest stop.

"We are so proud of you." Mom was on the verge of tears. Dad patted my shoulder. Mike and Tyrel leaned against the car. "Don't give them too much work to do," warned Tyrel. "High schoolers don't like that."

"Watch out on I-80. Those crazy knuckleheads switch lanes every chance they get."

"If you get tired, well, stop."

"Please, please, please don't talk on the phone while you are driving."

"We are so proud of you."

I feel like I haven't had this type of parenting and just plain family-ness in a long time. Somehow, I've become too independent. As mom pushed my bangs behind my ear she gave me that I-love-you look that I know so well--puppy eyes, lips together, admiration and pure love all in one.

Mom, Dad, Kearsen, Mike, Ty? Well, I love you.