The Best Community EVER!

We had a lot going on this weekend in our little family of five.  All of which was totally blog-worthy.  And I couldn't decide which to blog first!  But since I did some mommy bragging in my last post, I decided to write some house stuff in my post for today (stay tuned for more on my little ballerina!)

So, you all are fully aware that we are restoring this historic house.  There are plenty of old houses in this town, but the one we've been working on is really really visible (It's on one of the main roads.  Everyone passes it.).  Plus it's been vacant for the last thirty years & in disrepair for much longer than that.  (Not to mention, it's just plain cool!)  From what everyone tells us, they've all been saddened to watch it fall apart over the years & have been so happy to see a family restoring it & make it a home again.

We've gotten to know the executive director of the local chamber of commerce over the last year & a half.  He owns the local book store & coffee shop & we stop in from time to time.  Every time we get a chance to talk he tells us how happy he is that we're helping to revitalize the city.  He says they talk about us a lot in their meetings & he uses us as an example: "If the G's can save that house, any house can be saved!" lol

Well this Saturday was the annual "Green Up Vermont Day."  Which is super awesome in & of itself.  The goal is to take pride & ownership of our beautiful state & clean it up: clean up trash, highway debris, plant flowers, weed your yards, lay down new mulch, that kind of stuff.  To make this day even bigger, Scott thought it would be a great idea to use this special weekend to start a revitalization project.  He was choosing some visible spots around town that could use a few special touches to make the town look nicer with just a little bit of effort & was amassing a group of volunteers to pull it off.  They painted over this ugly painted dragon on a brick wall from a Chinese restaurant that closed over five years ago, did a little landscaping at the vet's office, and oh yeah: PAINTED OUR HOUSE!!!

Ohmahgosh happy tears.  This group of about ten people, out of the goodness of their hearts, came to our house for 6 hours & started to paint our house for us.  For no other reason than because they wanted to help us out & believed in what we were doing.  Seriously!  I'm still in shock that that just happened.

Of course in 6 hours you can't get an entire two story house painted completely, but we got a HUGE start & you can already tell how pretty it's going to be when it's all done!!

Some of our happy helpers

Big Helper #1

 

Big Helper #2 (Mark was at his lacrosse game)

This is Scott :)

Half-way up the other wall, plus that white makes a huge difference!

Mathew getting the columns

Lots done!  (We still have more scraping to do before we can get that moulding.  That'll make a huge difference.)

Halfway painted house plus we got a few fruit trees planted (so before long we won't have to look at that parking lot so much!  Ha Ha!)

So despite running around like crazy people with lacrosse games, practices, and dance recitals, we got a good start on painting our house.  I can't even think of how to thank these people properly!  It was such an incredible thing they did for us.  THIS is what a community is supposed to be like.  THIS is the reason why we decided to raise our kids here & spend our life here.  These people are amazing & I hope they realize what a rare gem it is.  We can't wait to pay it forward! :)