There goes the neighborhood.

That must have been what everyone said when we moved in!!

John and I bought our first house a couple months before we got married (6 yrs ago!).  I was living with some girls in a rent house and he was renting a room from a friend who owned a house.  John moved in right away and started painting and stuff like that.  It was such a wonderful home!  The neighborhood was very small, no through traffic, almost every house had a front porch, I felt totally safe out walking at night and it was a good in-between distance from everything.  

We had THE best neighbors too.  They were of course willing to get our mail and keep an eye on our house while we were out, but their dedication went so much further!  Just off the top of my head, I remember them coming over to drop off our mail the day we were supposed to get back from a trip and the mister noticed our heat wasn't working.  So he called a friend to come over and they got our pilot light working!!  John and I didn't arrive home till after 1 a.m.!  That would have been a disaster!  Another time we got a huge amount of rain and they went over once or twice to make sure water wasn't coming into our house (our house backed up to the drainage ditch...).  Oh and here's a big one: one day the missus was at home and I was at work.  She called and asked if I was expecting any service man at my house.  I said no.  She walked onto her front porch and stood there until the random man she had seen at our front door and then around the side of our house (near the backyard gate!) saw her and split.  Yikes!!  And more times than I could ever remember they lent a cup of sugar, an egg, a bag of fritos...whatever!  So needless to say it was sad to move.

The main issue with our house was the size, it was about 1100 sq ft and with a baby and lots of out of town company, we just decided we wanted a bit more room.  Thanks to Mr. Obama and his housing credit, we sold our house in a record 72 hours and bought another the day after ours sold.  The actual closings were slightly rocky, but everything ended up ok :)

That brings us to our new neighborhood.  We've been here a year now.  We really like the location, very close to the grocery and only a tad bit farther from, oh, everything else we do in life!  But our neighbors...well, who are they???  A few of them have introduced themselves, but only 1 (2 houses down) do we actually know each other's names!  Isn't that sad?  Oh wait, our next door neighbors started getting friendly about 2 months ago.  Right after they bought a new house and put theirs on the market.  Of our immediate neighbors, 3 have moved since we got here!

So what to do?  Well we did nothing.  BUT, the house on both sides of us have sold, one already has a new resident.  So we marched over with a pie!  That's what I wish someone would have done for us!  And the house on the other side of us?  I saw them with their realtor and waved, and when I saw them come back, I planted myself in the front yard with Will till they came outside!  I mean, we're going to be neighbors!!  We are also very much looking forward to the new arrival of some friends who've bought a house across the street!  We'll probably bring them a pie too, even though we know their names ;)  

I'm pretty excited to be getting to know some people, even if it's at a very slow rate.  Growing up, we knew everyone on our street.  Every single family.  I miss that, and I want Will to know the people around him.  This was a lot longer than I thought, I feel really strongly about knowing people around you.  I like to know and be known...

Happy Father's Day!

I am so blessed to have a great father.  He has always been my superman, I mean, he taught me how to ride a bike, check my oil, change a tire, drive a stick, mow a lawn (I think that might have been some kind of a trick though...), pull a tooth*, he baptized me, built the house I grew up in and about a million other things!  He is the king of goofy jokes and the type of guy you want on your side.

I have always looked up to my Dad and have many memories of outings and fun times with him.  He took me to lots of sporting events, to this day the only pro-football game I've ever been to was with dear old dad.  I remember it very clearly because it was the Cowboys/Redskins game on Thanksgiving day (his whole family is from northern Virginia) and my Uncle got punched by some crazed (drunk) Cowboy fan.  When I was in middle school, the Stars moved to TX and we got to go to a lot of hockey games together, such fun times!

He's around for bad times too though, on my 10th birthday, at my actual birthday party,  I broke my collarbone and my Dad drove me to the hospital.  What makes this special is that on our way out the door he grabbed a Dublin Dr. Pepper for me to drink on the way to the er!  Unfortunately I was in too much pain to enjoy it.

Another really specific memory I have of my Dad is that he always gave blood.  The blood-mobile would come to our church building periodically and he always took me with him.  I'm sure I wasn't supposed to, but I always snacked on the oj and graham crackers while he gave blood :) and then on the way home he would let me shift the gears while he drove.  I felt very needed!  He's the reason that I give blood today.

Another great blessing in my life is the man I married.  I knew it then that he too would be a great father.  From the moment Will was born John was smitten with him.  If you've ever had a new baby of any age in your house, you know that parenting is a 24 hr a day job.  So midnight walk-around-the-house-in-hopes-that-this-kid-falls-asleep-this-century duties were shared and so were the hundreds (thousands??) of dirty diapers that we've changed.  

I love to see them wrestling, or doing yardwork together or anything like that, I'm hoping that Will is picking up how much he is loved.  I know that he is already collecting his lifetime of memories with his own Dad.  I can't wait to see their relationship deepen through the years as toddler tantrums turn into teenage ones :)  I know for a fact that Will loves his Daddy as much as a 2 year old can.  It's precious and priceless!!

Today we celebrated by bringing John breakfast in bed and a handmade card by Will.  We actually woke him up with this breakfast and Will was so excited to get to run in yelling "Ahpise!  Happy haha day Daddy!!"  It was fun to tell him that today was a special day just for Daddy.

Happy Fathers Day to all you dads out there!!

John meeting Will for the first time

The house I grew up in

 My sweet Daddy.

*Tooth note: When I was in the "teeth losing" phase of my life I would always wash them off in my bathroom sink and about half the time I would lose them down the drain.  Now my Dad, jack of all trades, would come home, take my sink apart and retrieve the tooth.  And he did this literally all the time.  This is father of the year material people....

Dynamic!!

OH yes, that is the word of the month!  About 3 months ago (maybe more??) the church that we worship with announced they were offering a "Dynamic Marriage" course.  They read, it will make average marriages great and great marriages amazing, or something like that.

I was very interested, but then they announced the price.  $130 per couple!  Holy cow!  We don't want to invest that much in our marriage...oh, wait, I didn't mean it like that.  It's just that, we could buy so much stuff with $130...oh ok, just sign us up we'll bring a check...

And to dispel any rumors you are pondering about circulating, no, John and I were not in "trouble", we did not have "issues"...we just wanted a better marriage.  We love our little munchkin, but if you have kids, you know what they are capable of doing to your marriage.  In the sweetest cutest possible way.  We were parents, we both love Will, but we had forgotten how much fun we used to have just the 2 of us.

So we began the 8 week class with some skeptisim.  I mean, we've been to seminars hosted by our church, even an all weekend one that we got as a wedding gift.  How different could this be?  I know all the rules, listen, respect, be nice, blah, blah, blah!  But this, was different.

We had homework, we actually talked, we learned about each other.  It took us back to that magical pre-baby part of the marriage that was all about our love for each other!!  In short, it was dynamic.

So if you ever hear about any place offering this course, walk, don't run to sign up!!!

No really, don't apologize!

Ok, so you know how we all live in perfect houses, with freshly manicured lawns, none of our pets shed and our kids don't tornado the house every 11 minutes?  

Exactly.

I have a very dear friend, and her very dear mother and I were talking about this "I can't have anyone over till my house is spotless and I can't seem to keep my house spotless so I'll just stop having people over" syndrome.  I for one am tired of it!  I keep my house, sort of clean.  I mean, sure, we get stacks of mail that camp out on the kitchen island for weeks at a time.  There are perpetual mounds of toys that never seem to stay in the toy room.  Our beds are not made, sinks are not empty, but come on!  Anyone else out there willing to admit this?!  

But when we have people over, all the visible areas (living room, kitchen, bathroom) are promptly cleaned, waxed and buffed as if that is how it always looks!  I may even throw in a little , excuse the mess!  As if I didn't spend an hour picking up...puh-lease.

But my closest friends, the ones who know me inside and out and haven't been scared off?  Those are the ones that see the real house!  Those are the ones who I can have a sink full of dishes, stacks of mail, laundry in the living room and be totally cool having them stop by for a while.  Why don't we let our guards down more?  I mean, if we all let people see how we really lived, we would see how they really live and we'd all be a little more comfortable in our own skin.  You know? 

Ok.

So now I'm going to stand up from the couch, and take a picture of my living room exactly how it is right now.  I promise not to clear out a thing.

 See, I mean it's messy but it's not disgusting.  right?

So join me.  Invite a friend over, don't apologize for the mess and just...leave it.