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This house is the house I spent most of my “growing up” years in, in Alaska. It was a great house, but totally ill-equipped for a family of 6. Also it was full of windows. Which is great if you live in Hawaii. Not so great if mostly what you get to look at is rain, rain and more rain, followed by some snow…

When Nathan and I went back a few years ago we stopped by and luckily got to go inside and talk to the people who live there now. Ironically they are also the people who lived there before my family (It’s a long story. Don’t ask.)

Here are the 2 things that I noticed:
1. They undid just about everything my mother had done to that house to make it work for our family.
2. It was smaller and the ceilings were lower. That sounds so much like what you would expect me to say, but it is true.

This is our breakfast/dining room in Nathan and I’s first real house. Well, the first house we owned. When we walked in we knew we had found “it.” The house was cute and perfect, with a great 1950’s pitched ceiling and wood floors throughout, all in wonderful shape. It was tiny – less that 950 sq ft. But it was a good house to us. We had Wylie there and our first Christmas Eve Party there and lot’s of other first that have shaped our adult lives there as well.
We sold it the night before we left on our trip to Alaska.

These pictures are from our current house, the house I found days after coming home from AK. The day these pictures were taken Molly and Tony were married in our living room. If anyone ever wants to get married in your house I highly recommend it. It is a joy and there is nothing better. I wish we had done it this way, but we were young and didn’t know any better. The day was bright and sunny and everything was pink and lovely. That night, for the ceremony, the room was lit by candlelight and everything glowed – especially the wedding party.

Houses are important. They are important because they are the boxes that hold a lot of our memories. To some people they are just functional parts of life on earth, but to me that are glorious cocoons and should be treated as such.

Births, deaths, weddings, tears, love, kisses, disappointments, toddlers, dreams, spills, laughter, work, confessions, silence, joy. They all take place between the walls of our houses, and this is what makes them our homes. I can not separate myself completely from any of the ones I have lived in. I can still walk their halls in my memory as if they are still mine, and I guess, as long as I can remember them, they will always be.