Reflections - Where it all began...

Let's see - in order to take a step back and reflect on the "best year of my life", I should probably give you a brief introduction and back story of where it all began.

My husband (lets call him - J) and I were married on June 7th, 2008 and have been together since October 2000 - way back when I was young and impressionable, (a.k.a when I was 17 and a high school senior).  We had been good friends since the 7th grade and we even "dated" and shared my first kiss together way back when I was 12.  During the fall of our senior year - he approached our friend and wanted to know if I would be interested in a date.  We went to dinner and the movies and just a few short days later we made it official and - so began our coupledom. 

We were crazy about eachother and when the end of the school year came and we had plans to head to seperate colleges, we wanted to make a concerted effort to try to stay together no matter the distance.  I chose to go to a small private school in RI and he decided to go to a bigger state school in NH.  Most of our weekends were spent travelling the 3+ hours to see eachother for 2 short days and by the time Christmas break rolled around - I knew in my heart that I needed to make a change to be closer to him.  I didn't particularly like the people that I went to school with and found myself making better friends with the people at J's school.  My parents knew that I wanted to transfer to NH to be with him and my new friends but had made me promise to finish the year out in RI to make sure that by the end of the year we were still serious about making the decision to be closer.

By the time summer rolled around, our relationship was stronger than ever and I was accepted and began to make the plans to transfer to J's school.  Making the decision to transfer there was the beginning of the changes that I started to see in myself.  I was finding my autonomy and learning to make adult decisions.  I look back on this decision and know that I would not have J by my side today if I didn't take the chance to see if things would work out.

Flash forward three years and we were still happily together after a few bumps in the road and ready to graduate - we both planned to move home to our parents.  Three months after living at home we decided to move in together and then one quick year later we were engaged on December 23, 2006 in our first apartment together.  We decided to be married on June 7th, 2008 because we wanted to pay for the majority of the wedding ourselves.  After some serious penny pinching we were able to have the wedding that we dreamed of and set off on a wonderful honeymoon in Mexico.

After returning from our honeymoon - we needed something "new" to focus our energies on which led us to begin our search for our first home.  We had a small nest egg from our generous wedding gifts and wanted to invest in our first home.  We knew that we would be buying a definite fixer upper with the intentions to live in the home for about five years.  After searching and looking at more than 60 homes and putting in a dozen offers, we finally bought our first home in November 2008.  We spent two months replacing many issues and working with no heat (promise to recap some of our reno projects and outtakes!).  We finally moved in during a snow storm in the last weekend of January 2009.

During 2009, we spent the majority of our time living in a constant state of renovation dust and rubble.  By the summer of 2009 - we began to talk about our baby plans.  We had been together for nine years and were starting to get the questions from everyone under the sun about when we would start the family.  by the end of the summer I had full blown baby fever and we were quickly making plans to finish the biggest renovation project in our home to make way for a baby.