Wow. So school started and then lots of other things happened. All the things happened except me writing on the blog. Most have probably given up on me by now, but in the spirit of hating to give up altogether, I’m back.
We recently had our annual visit from my brother, Joey, and his family. I’ve written about these sorts of visits before; crazy amounts of food and coffee, late nights, music and dancing from the kids, trips to the park… Overall, good times. My niece said something on this trip that got me thinking. They were leaving to go somewhere and she didn’t want to go. She said, “I never want to leave this house. It’s the funnest house ever.” After that, my brother started calling it the happiest place on earth (according to Lucy).
This made me happy to hear for so many different reasons. Our kids have grown up in this house; a house that looked nothing like it does now when we first bought it. We’ve changed almost every part of it and made it bigger to fit our growing family. In making all of those changes it’s always a work in progress and it’s not done. I don’t know if it ever will be. There are doors that aren’t up, moulding missing in almost every room, and what was supposed to be a cement driveway is still just gravel, 9 years later.
This house is not the most beautiful on the block and the yard isn’t kept up just so. But all of those things have nothing to do with what goes on inside the unfinished house. There is a lot of love that happens here and it’s expressed in all kinds of ways. It’s expressed in food being shared with friends and family. It’s expressed in laughing together and comforting each other when things aren’t going so great. It’s expressed in sharing what’s going on in our lives with not only our family, but friends who have become part of our family. These are the things that I believe make this the funnest house ever. It’s home and it’s where I love to be.
