Happy Home Sweet Home to Us!

Our first Christmas in our house. Kirby was 20 months old,

and I was pregnant with Connor.

Today marks the fourth anniversary of us moving into our house. It's hard to believe it's been four years! It seems like just yesterday that we packed all of our belongings into one 14' U-Haul and made the trek down the mountains. I can tell you that we've never looked back. Life on the Front Range suits us.

I remember going to sleep the first night in our house, on our new mattress (which was on the floor, since we hadn't had time to put the bed together). Exhausted from jockeying furniture and a 20 month-old all day, I fell into a deep sleep, only to be woken by a hideously loud, obnoxiously long train whistle blasting through my bedroom window. Somehow, we had been to the house three times in the process of buying it, and never noticed that we had to cross railroad tracks 2 blocks away from it! I woke up the next morning feeling not at all rested, but walking down the stairs to the kitchen I looked around and couldn't believe all of the space we had (we had just come from a 700 square foot condo, which is the same size as our kitchen and living room now). I put on my shoes and snuck out of the house to go for a walk by myself. It was at that point that reality began to set in, and I realized that what we had done was permanent! No more hiding in our cozy little mountain community, we had become full-fledged city dwellers, complete with neighbors blasting Spanish music and an alarm system (which I insisted we install). It was at that point that I realized how much our lives had changed. I spent my entire life living in small communities, where a kid could walk into the grocery store and cash a check for her mom, and your parents' banker was sure to let them know if he saw you getting out of hand at the Country Kitchen after the homecoming game. I went to college in a small town and then lived in a small ski community for the next 7 years.

What I didn't realize that morning, was how much I would come to love my neighborhood, and all of my neighbors. True, we have very little in common, and true, we don't really socialize with one another; but I am on waving and smiling terms with every single house on my street, and on gossip-on-the-front-lawn terms with quite a few. I have a couple of girlfriends in the neighborhood that I walk with or meet up with at the park and we always seem to have a driveway full of kids playing with the boys. We've met some amazing people who have blessed us with their friendship, and we now have quite a bit of family here too. Life is good, and I'm so grateful for every day of the four years we've been here.