The other night our daughter was cleaning out her closet. She brought a stack of books out to the living room. Books bought her first day of high school. Books that had hardly been opened. How could we know that no teacher would ever collect the homework assigned for the second Monday of her freshman year?

Except for the first two weeks, my daughter has spent all four of her high school years at Chapel Hill High. We arrived Labor Day weekend 2005. Five days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall, four days after the canal walls had given way to water that filled 80 percent of our city.

Scary? You bet! A high school senior son, a freshman daughter, their dad serving in Iraq, and each one of us trying to figure it all out and make a plan. Now, looking back, I'd like to share how it has turned out and thank a few of the many wonderful people who have helped make Chapel Hill our home.

First, there is our friend from 20 years ago who gave us use of her home, complete with a stocked refrigerator! Then the woman whose four children I babysat 29 years ago while attending UNC went down to Lincoln Center and picked up all the paperwork to enroll our son and daughter. Another old friend gave our son a job.

We received so much from our family. My father-in-law replaced our truck, which had been in a repair shop in an area of New Orleans that was under more than six feet of water. When, two months later, we found out that our truck was one of two vehicles that the shop had left up on lifts and was fine, he didn't even ask for the new truck back!

Our first Christmas here folks at Church of the Holy Family were concerned we had lost our ornaments and decorations. Not to worry! The kids in the youth group each chose one ornament for our tree. One new friend gave us a box full of hand-cut ribbons to tie bows on the branches. Best of all, some wonderful people had gotten a list from my mother-in-law and then chosen ornaments that represented things in our lives: a canoe for the kids' camp, a coffee and beignets ornament from New Orleans; one talented friend made a stained-glass schooner-rigged ketch to commemorate the one we'd lived on when we first got married.

Don't think I've forgotten the teachers, staff, students and parents at Chapel Hill High School. Any move is difficult, especially for teenagers. Our son worried about how to continue his application process for the U.S. Naval Academy. Our 14-year-old spent time on her phone and online encouraging her friends scattered all over the country. And she wondered with whom she would eat lunch. The school nurse kept her door open, offering sanctuary when there was confusion, quiet listening when there were only curious stares in the halls. Then there are the CHHS coaches and teams who welcomed my shell-shocked kids, not as amazing super athletes, but as part of the team, then as part of the family.

There have been a few disappointments, but these are outweighed by so much good. There are Time Out chicken and cheddar biscuits, the Carrboro Farmers' Market, and Crooks Corner. There are the teachers and friends who come to games, plays and concerts to support the kids in this community. Teachers who ask a kid who arrived as a freshman, shaken and a little lost, to use that experience to welcome other new students. Teachers who are inspirations to the ones they are teaching and to the community.

How have we settled in? Our son received two nominations to the Naval Academy and will receive his commission in May 2010. Our daughter is looking ahead to attending UNC this fall. We bought a house on land that was pasture for dairy cows 25 years ago. Our new home is only one story because we plan to live in it until we are old. We each keep up with friends from New Orleans, joyful for the small steps forward there and so thankful for the many good people from here and elsewhere who still go to the Gulf Coast to help with the recovery. Chapel Hill is home now. Our lives are so full that we don't need those old books.