Going home...

Today I received confirmation that all of the loose ends are falling into place for our move back to Maryland!

It is bittersweet to move from our first home.  We are excited to be closer to family and begin our new adventure in fixing up our new home (as it is in need of TLC).

I will always remember our first days rehabing our little ranch in September of 2003 and how excited I was that we became homeowners.  How we with the help of family and friends over the years remodeled the entire house!

I will remember the way my husband made our house the scariest one in the neighborhood for Halloween and how most of the kids were too afraid to walk to the front door.  The brave ones would be so enthusiastic about our haunted house I'd be smiling for days!

I will remember cooking my first (and last so far) Thanksgiving meal in my kitchen for my husband's family. 

I will remember how excited I was to put up our Christmas tree on black friday each year and helping stringing the twinkling lights around the outside.  Hubby transformed our little ranch into a gingerbread house and had the lights on a timer so that every day I drove home from work I would be greeted by our cheery holiday house.

I will remember sitting in my backyard relaxing by the small pond hubby put in, reading books, studying for my securities and insurance licenses.  The after-work cookouts the two of us would have enjoying the summer nights and each other's company.

I will remember the tons of parties we had over 7 years, every 4th of July and Halloween, Christmas Eves, Birthdays...  Always surrounded by our many friends and family.

I will remember finding out about both of my pregancies and bring both of my sons home from the hospital to our little ranch that was growing quite tight.  Learning how to be a mother with my first son in his little nursery with his many accessories strewn over the house.  Giving him his first bath with Daddy and Aunt Megs looking on.  Then bringing my second son home from the hospital so he could meet his big brother (of 17 months!) and see his grandparents again.  I think Pop Pop was on cloud 9 that day sitting on the sofa with a look like a kid at Christmas morning...he could hardly sit still!

I will remember first birthdays, first hair cuts, playing in the leaves, taking the boys for stroller and wagon rides around the neighborhood, walking to the nearby farm, taking the boys for a dip in the pool, playing in the sandbox under the big trees in the backyard.

I will remember a lot of things about our little ranch, our first home, but the thing I will remember the most is that the love we filled that house up with is what made it a home.