And so it begins...

This is my grandmother's house. It sits right next door to my parents and sits right in the middle of our family's farm. This is the house where I watched Saturday morning cartoons and ate my Grandma's deliciously famous cinnamon toast as a little girl. This is the house where we had Easter egg hunts, Sunday pot roasts, holiday gatherings, tripoly games, countless sleepovers, and every Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. I still get the same fuzzy feeling when I walk through the laundry room door that I did growing up going to visit my grandma, and it still has that same musty, salty smell. Or at least it does in my mind. This house holds so many memories for me and is completely intertwined with my upbringing. You simply can't have one without the other, and now, we are moving in.

I cannot wait to raise my kids in this house. I am thrilled beyond belief that they will run through the same pasture, swim in the same pond, and hide in the same woods as I did. They sit at the same breakfast bar to tell me about their day at school and gather in front of the same fireplace on Christmas Eve. Easter eggs will still be hidden in the backyard and there may be a new treehouse to replace the one we outgrew.

There is so much work to be done. The house has been completely neglected for the last 11 years since Grandma died. We will be putting tons of work into the house that we will document here. But even with some new walls, floors, and countertops, the tradition and spirit of the house will remain. And that is what is drawing us home.