Home Sweet Stalbridge Home

May 2014 

This home has been our's for a little more than 13 years.   We moved into this sweet neighborhood on this circle, Stalbridge Circle in February 2001.   At the time, Eric was in third grade, Joseph in first, Jonathan was in preschool at Miss Chris' preschool.  Michael was my sweet 20 month old baby  boy.  I was expecting Jacob due to arrive in April.   We were a busy, young family!    

During the past 13 years, our boys have grown, we have attended many school programs, choir concerts, put together many science fair projects, and I have sent boy after boy to scout camps galore.  All of the boys but Scott have completed cub scouts and I now have two Eagle Scouts.  We have seen the boys go on tour, perform in the highschool musicals and even Jonathan was the lead in one of them!   

This has been a gathering place.  A place where family has regularly come together for dinners and parties, and holiday traditions, where we sang so loud and lively we thought the roof might come off! This has been a cozy place in snow storms and quick summer showers and thunderstorms.  

  This has been a stopping place for traveling families and we have cherished every bit of our time together.  

This is where I brought home new babies, Jacob and Scott, celebrated so many birthdays, watched our older boys go on first dates, have parties with friends, play basketball on the driveway.   This is where neighbor kids played happily in the mud of the burm before we turned it into a beautiful flower garden. (though we left the back of the side yard open for hours of mud fun, digging little rivers, creating roads for cars)  This is where they climbed trees, created obstacle courses, and jumped on the trampoline for hours.     This is the site of a few neighborhood parties when our lawn was filled with lawn chairs and neighbors who stayed until the wee hours of the morning talking.    This is the driveway where we set up the fire pit, roasted marshmallows, and the boys laughed and talked with their friends.   This is the neighborhood where our kids played night games with the neighbor kids.     

This is the home where we celebrated Christmas, shared scripture and testimony.  This is where we had dinners that included laughter and lively boy type discussions (sometimes so overwhelming to me!)  

This is also the home of tears, lessons learned, hard discussions, occasional disagreements, and all the things that are part of growing in a family.. if we let it be that way!    This is the home where we faced challenges and trials with faith and some tears.  

On June 8th, a new family, complete strangers will wake up in this home.  OUR home.. the home we have lived in for 13 years.    A home that is packed to every corner with memories, our memories.    For 13 years, we have lived, breathed, struggled, laughed, played, worked together in this house.   It is a home that we have truly made our's.   All but two of my six boys have grown a "foot or two" while in this house.    

Will the new owners catch any of the "spirit" that we leave in this house?   A house so filled with boy spirit and energy?