home.

There's no place like home.

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When we were kids, home was a very concrete place. It was that house where we spent our formative years... learning to ride bikes, getting sent to our room, decorating for Christmas, building forts... That house had a smell, sounds, textures, voices that have been ingrained into our memories.

I {Jenny} remember the winding road lined with trees that led to "the little blue house." The swing on the big oak tree, the fort in the backyard, the playhouse that my mom built, smells of playdough, making english muffin pizzas, sharing a queen size bed with Ashton, my dad's corndog and chili dinners, riding bikes to the Ciraulo's...

I {Brandon} can recall building fences, decks, and playhouses with dad, the way a crisp fall Saturday morning feels as you head out to play soccer, and the smell of mom's spaghetti filling the house as we completed homework. Summer brought us endless games of baseball and street hockey until we couldn't see the ball any longer.

It's interesting that in your 20's, home is such a fluid concept. Brandon and I have talked about how home is where we live together in a particular stage. We've yet to establish a home as in a physical address. That will come in time and probably with kids...

But for now we're saying goodbye to a place that we have known as a couple for 2 years and Brandon has called home for almost 30 years. Things will be different from this point on, but we said yes to life changing when we said "I do".

The morning of our wedding day, I {Brandon} woke up in a hotel room shared by my three brothers. I had shared rooms with brothers for the better part of 20 years. As I got dressed, it struck me that I would never start my day from that point of view again. Now I wake up to my wife greeting me with a kiss.

It reminds me {Jenny} of how quickly life changed that week. One night I was sitting as an unmarried daughter watching Father of the Bride with my parents around me, a few nights later I was driving away from our reception as a wife knowing that life would never look the same.

Past places and phases of life hold special memories, but each transition leads us closer to who we are becoming and where God wants us to be.

It's still hard, it's still painful. But we always hope.