A House With History

So I've told you guys before how this little house of ours is like this conversational magnet. People stop several times a day to see what we're up to, compliment us on our hard work, or even to ask us if we want help. So nothing new when an older gentleman stopped Mathew the other day to chat about the house.
Except this wasn't your everyday visitor. This guy's family built this house!
He was in town for the big high school rival football game (because that's what all small town America folk seem to get excited about! lol) and his fellow alumni were invited to the game as the class of '52.  He doesn't live in our town anymore, but learned that we were renovating it & wanted to stop by.  (Editor's note: Matt just told me he drove all the way up from Virginia!  Did not know that.)

So Matt stopped what he was doing & talked with this man, Dick Johnson, for quite a while. He even took notes!  I hope I can decifer them well enough. Here's my best shot.

A man named John N. Gale (1838-1916) of a town called Hardwick, VT built the house in 1860. He had a woodworking shop & built furniture & cabinetry. He was married twice. His first wife, Anna P. Johnson, lived from 1839-1888. They were married for just 7 years before her passing. He then married Bessie Farrow-Higgins a year later. Bessie, a widower 15 years his junior, had one child from her previous marriage: Julia Belle Higgins (born in 1884).  John & Bessie had another son together, Lyman, in 1891.  Julia was this man's grandmother. He says she graduated from the Academy (where my kids will go to High School) in 1903, majoring in the classics, and she tutored him in Latin all the way through High School. (That is very cool for that time period!).  Also noteworthy, the 1900 census shows a Albert Gale listed as his son living in the house... Born in 1870!  Makes me wonder if there was another wife before Anna living with him when he originally built it... Hmm...)
Anyway, Julia married Bernard Albert Johnson, Dick's grandfather. (I'm not sure if he was any relation to Mr. Gale's first wife Anna). (Another editor's note: Matt says he asked & they were not related.)  Bernard ran a fine men's clothing store called Moore & Johnson which was known as the place in New England to buy men's clothing. John & Bessie sold the house to Julia & Bernard in 1913, just three years before John died. Julia died in 1941 according to Dick, and the city records show that the front 8 feet of the property were deeded to the city that year to build the bridge. Dicks dad, Clark Johnson, executor of Julia's estate, sold the house in 1974.

So that's what we know so far. Pretty cool, huh?  (It's okay if you don't think so.  But we do! LOL)  Matt got to sit & talk with an elderly man who says he spent every Thanksgiving & Christmas of his life in our house. He told Matt stories about how he'd go & visit grandma and how every Saturday night shed soak beans to cook in our kitchen. What a privilege!  How many people are blessed to have a home with such rich history, and how many people are so lucky to be able to talk with a man who made so many memories throughout his life in that home?  And then, have him give his blessing with everything we're doing to restore it!  Amazing. And I'm so sad I missed meeting him. I hope that once the house is complete we'll be able to invite him over for dinner sometime & he can tell us more stories. He's going to try to get us more pictures, and he directed us to good people to contact for maybe some more historical info. In the mean time, I did find this one picture online. It's a postcard from 1907, and juuuuuuuust immediately to the left of this picture is where our house is. So close! :/. But still cool!

As I finish typing here, it is early Monday morning. I'm sure you all have heard about hurricane Sandy heading our way. We expect it to hit tomorrow, maybe this evening, and as far inland as upstate NY. Logically, I can't imagine it being too bad where I live, but I've learned from experience not to underestimate big storms. ;). They're saying we should expect wind gusts up to 80 mph, so who knows!  I'll be sure to update you all as soon as it's over. Fingers crossed that our good luck in VT still stands! :)

New England Fall

I think Fall has always been my favorite time of year. But now that we live in the northeast?  Oh. My. Goodness. I can't even begin to tell you how gorgeous it is every year!  All of these trees and all of the colors across the mountains... Just breathtaking. And there's a couple week span each year where the colors really hit their peak and the state is at its most beautiful. It's one of the areas biggest tourist times too.  (Here they call those folks the "leaf peepers." He he!). But alas I'm not a tourist. I see this out of my own window every day, but I also have responsibilities.  Kids, full time job, you know. Life. It seemed like any day it was gorgeous & perfect for photos I was working, and when I was off I either had entirely too much to do, it was way too overcast for pictures (because it's mountains & the clouds actually cover up the landscape! Lol), or I didn't have my friggin camera with me!  Grr. Well then it rained a lot, the leaves fell, and I missed my chance. Bummer. :/. Next Fall I promise I will make it a point to take some better pics of the trees. I promise!

The view from my son's soccer practice.  Doesn't even do it justice...

But we definitely did take some time to enjoy this time of year. One afternoon, I was sick of looking at all of the leaves covering the driveway, & Mark wanted to earn some cash, so we went out to rake. Poor Mark ended up with a nosebleed about ten minutes into it (darn allergies!) but Natalie was loving being my big helper, so we kept going. Gavin didn't realize what fun it would be, so he chose to stay inside. Anyway, once we got the big pile all raked, Natalie couldn't wait to jump in & throw all of the leaves around again!  LoL

Then daddy came home & helped... Helped her play I mean! ;).

Mark finally felt better, & decided he wanted to be buried in the leaves.

Then Gavin came to his senses & finally decided to join us.

It was so fun!  I've never had so many leaves from one tree to work with!


And last week we headed out to the pumpkin patch. We ended up a little late to do the hay rides & all of that, but that's okay. We'll catch it next year. But we did have fun picking our pumpkins. All organic of course. Because Vermont's cool like that. ;)

Picking out their pumpkins

Always with the coffee in his hands!

My three cuties (who desperately needed haircuts but they're cute anyway! lol)

Our big helper! lol

So about this time last year, it had already snowed once, and it was certainly cold enough to stick. But even though they are calling for a super snowy winter this year, somehow the cold weather has held off. In fact this October has been just beautiful!  I happen to think that God is doing it just for us so we can get some more work done. ;). And Matt is taking full advantage. He's been getting so much done these past few weeks!  Lets see... Back room is all framed in, floor is rebuilt in our bathroom, all of the concrete work is complete, mud room walls are rebuilt, all of the windows are placed, back roof is almost done, trench is dug for electricity, fireplace is being built, basement stairs are being built, boiler & tank placed in the basement, driveway is clear of all of the tear out... And probably a lot more that I haven't listed!  So much progress!!

Our mudroom is back up!

Other side of the house, roof almost done on the back, ready for siding!

What will be our kitchen... yeah we've got a little work to do! lol

He's had countless people approach him asking if he needed help (lots of unemployment here unfortunately) and just recently he's agreed to give a couple of guys a try. I figure for the amount of pay they're asking for & the amount of time they're saving him by doing some of the tedious tasks, we're saving at least that much rent so it evens out!  For the most part it's been working out great. These guys work hard & don't complain & I think that's all Matt could ever ask for.  Now, fingers crossed that everything gets done enough outside & the electricity can get wired before the first snow so we can keep things rolling! :)

My little Natalie is FOUR!

I know every mom looks back on every birthday their kids have & says "where did the time go?"  But seriously!  Where did the time go?!?!  I feel like it was just last week that we were holding that tiny little baby girl in our arms, and now she's so big I can hardly carry her!

So her birthday was actually the 8th, but I had to work, like, constantly since then, so my apologies for the late post.  But here's some highlights of her birthday fun!

First, daddy treated her to some pretty pink roses & a Tangled balloon for his little princess.  

Cheese!

Momma had to follow suit in her typical neurotic style & make a ridiculous cake for just the five of us... (well the four of them, because I can't eat it! lol)  But she loved it anyway & that's all that matters! :)  Since I can't have a big family party for her like I did for the boys at this age, it's the least I could do!

In case you didn't know, those are characters from her favorite show, the Bubble Guppies!

While daddy was making her a special birthday dinner, we let her open her gifts from her Pa-Pa that came in the mail.  Cinderella & a homemade Hello Kitty blanket!  She was thrilled!

Poor girl had to stare at that package for two days! Like I've said before, I'm a mean mom! ;)

Happy Birthday to You...

"Hey Mom!  When you cut the cake, I want to eat Molly's head!" lol  Silly girl! ;)

Then it was time for presents from Mom & Dad & "her" boys!

She's not spoiled at alllll.... :/

She had a couple of favorite gifts.  Her big gift was her very own camera!  She always wants to steal mine, & I never want to give it up because, well, she's little & breaks things. ;)  So she got one she can go nuts with!

Well of *course* it's Hello Kitty!

This little girl tells me she wants to be a "doctor for kids" when she grows up.  Warms my heart! <3  So she got her very own baby doll complete with stethescope & syringe!  I don't think she's put it down since she got it!

Giving baby her medicine.  Too cute!

And, it is also noteworthy what she decided to name this baby.  The other day, I told her "love ya bunches!" and she was very confused.  She said, "Mom, why did you call me Bunches?"  I said, "no sweetie, that just means I love you a lot!"  Well she still thought that was pretty funny & has been calling me Bunches ever since.  Now, she says that's the name of her baby!  rotfl!  Love my silly girl!

Finally, one of the only things she actually asked for was some bubbles.  Not an easy task in October, but daddy found some cute ones, & she took them out for a spin the next day.

Such pure happiness right here! :)

 Not necessarily an eventful day, but we had a very happy girl & we all enjoyed celebrating her!

Hopefully we'll be off to the pumpkin patch this afternoon, so I hope to have a post of Fall Vermont Fun really soon!  Thanks to all of my faithful readers out there.  I'm up to 5,000 hits this afternoon!  Love you all! :)

"Good Fences Make Good Neighbors"

Or in our case, Mr. Frost, a good fence brings out the batshit crazy in our neighbor!

On the 19th, I finally put up the fence that I've been meaning to put up for months. There's not much that I'm able to contribute to building this house, so I was ÜBER proud of myself for getting it done & doing it right.

Ta-da!  Fence is up, round #1

It transformed our otherwise blah little yard & made it look somewhat pretty... or at least that we were trying anyway. ;). We had so many people who were parking in the next door lot stop to tell us how nice it looked, or to thank us for fixing this house. Super sweet people who are the epitome of this town. We left for the evening feeling pretty darn good.

Our neighbor, however, did not have the same good feeling.

I had to work the next day, so Matt went to the house alone. Sometime overnight the jerk put up a string indicating that we were over his property line on one corner. Did I mention that said property is a PARKING LOT?!?! (And a poorly maintained one at that). If it were somebody's home, I would be falling all over myself apologizing for my error and would rectify it ASAP. But a parking lot??? Even the space I did use left plenty of grass between the fence & the gravel. So... I don't get it. Why the big deal?

Matt called him in the morning to try to work it out. He started out trying to be as nice as possible about it, even offering to maintain all the grass on the other side & plant flowers, but he was quickly attacked! The guy went crazy!! He started yelling about how we did it on purpose, that he's sick of us walking through the lot (you know, so we can take our kids down the street to the gas station to the only bathroom we can use... silly us), that he was mad we drove through the lot when we moved here to park our construction trailers behind the house (on our property). He said he was sick of our mess & was going to call the city on us for it (as so many residents are overjoyed & complimenting us on how much better it looks already... Mmm kay...), and then he starts questioning our permits... Simmer down dude! Well I don't know exactly how that conversation ended, but I can tell you I did see the later text. "I want that fence removed TODAY or I will remove it for you." Well considering he already dented the fence somehow when he was putting up the ridiculous string we didn't want to take any chances. It just wasn't worth the argument. So that evening Matt took it all down. :(

We probably could have made a huge ordeal out of it. Should have demanded to see a survey, given him the opportunity to destroy our property & go after him if he wanted a fight. But the truth is we just don't have the energy to fight anymore. We have had to fight for so much that has been owed to us and for all the ways we've been wronged over the last couple of years that this one just seemed so trivial. This is not the place where we wanted to ever have to deal with those kinds of problems ever again. Besides, from what I understand, the Chinese restaurant has a ten year lease on that lot, which means this man is going to be our "neighbor" for a very long time. We'd better make nice now.

So even though I wasn't at all happy about it, today I finished putting the fence back up.

Pardon the construction mess.  We built the back room today too!

 
I was getting more & more angry as I kept finding rocks & humongous roots that needed to be hacked so that I could properly place the stakes, a problem I didn't have the first time. I was thoroughly annoyed that instead of my pretty right angle that fit perfectly up to the house I had to put it at this stupid funky angle that left a space of useless grass for no reason at all. Grr!!

The difference of space that all the fuss was about.  Notice the amount of grass there still was, not to mention the general crappiness of the property in question...  Whatever dude.

But it's back up now, and it still looks pretty good. And I now have one very happy puppy who can run & play.

Copper hugging my leg saying "Thanks Mom!" ;)

And if this man even lets "his" grass grow a fraction of an inch too long? Lord help him. ;)

Ballerina Girl

I don't know about you moms of girls out there, but for me, one of the first things I looked forward to as soon as the doctor told me "It's a Girl!!" is ballet lessons.  It's something I grew up with & loved, & I very much wanted to share that with my daughter someday.  I'll be honest, I would be pretty heartbroken if she was never interested, but thankfully for me it's all she's talked about for at least a year, & the time has come!  Her first lesson was on Thursday, & she was SO excited! 

Getting ready at home

Gotta try on those fun tap shoes too! ;)

Look at my pretty tutu!

I got this, Mom...

A little shy & nervous.  She needed a little pep talk from Momma, and finally teacher's hand to hold, but she did great!

Natalie & her new friends!  About time to close the door Mom & Dad!  See you soon! :)

Once she got over her shyness & jumped in, she had a great time!  I was so proud of her, and I think she was proud of herself too.  It's still pretty hard for her to meet new people & step away from mommy & daddy, but she did such a great job.  And she's been talking about all of the things she learned ever since! I think tutu's & costumes, tights & dance shoes, rehersals & recitals will all be in our near future!  (Yay! ;))

More Birthday Fun!

It's time to celebrate another birthday in our household! This past Monday, my used-to-be-only-5-lb peanut turned NINE! Where does the time go?? As I told you earlier, we do parties every other year for our guys. So Gavin's birthday was a pretty low key day at home. But he did get to have a couple of friends stay the night, and he had a blast! (And I am thankful that the house is still standing! lol)

Gavin's Lego Harry Potter cake.  Took me two hours to make the perfect Harry layer by layer & I managed to screw up the wand.  Don't make fun of me! ;)

Blowing out candles, laughing at Natalie's rendition of "Happy Birthday to You, you smell like a zoo..."

Having cake with Carter & Gabe

What sleepover could be complete without glow-in-the-dark grillz?? lol

Of course I have a story for every event in our family. Thankfully I have a kid who goes with the flow.
So we ordered Gavin a Kindle Fire for his birthday from Staples. They were out of stock in the store, but offered to ship one to our house free of charge. Awesome. Done. It came in two days & I thought we were golden, but of course not! The box looked like it had been drop kicked and had clearly been opened and poorly re-taped. The Kindle inside had a dent in one side and was half opened with a box cutter or something on the other side. Uncool! Especially since we didn't pay the $50 for an extended warranty, we didn't want to keep it knowing it was more than likely damaged.
SO... We returned the damaged Kindle. But! In that few days' time, they released the shiny *new* kindle! After some discussion, we decided to order Gavin the newer one (straight from Amazon. No more of this silly Staples business). Unfortunately that meant he needs to wait. Bummer. But my kid is excited anyway and happy we decided what we did. He'll get to have birthday all over again when the mail comes on the 22nd! :)

Present time!

Doubled over "I can't breathe" kind of laughter from his brother's card.  It had some kind of hotdog/weiner reference.  Oh boys! lol

Opening the mock Kindle Fire.  I wrapped one of his books & taped a picture of the kindle fire to the front.  He was excited, then quickly confused.  I'm a mean mom. ;) lol

Part Two: Natalie Cuteness
Okay, so I have no segue from birthday to housework, so I'll just make this part two because its so darn cute & totally blog-worthy.
Miss Natalie helps her daddy at the house on the days that I work. This day he gave her a project: hammering her name with nails.

So proud! :)

She did such a good job and was so proud of herself that he had to use the board she used on the house.

The wall of the back room, Natalie's board

Now Natalie will be forever a part of this house. Even if it's inside the walls and we're the only ones who know. ;)

Our Anniversary

So I was talking with my hubby the other day and he randomly asks, "So, are you going to blog about our anniversary?" LOL! I said no, I wasn't planning on it because I posted all of those pictures on Facebook. {insert Mathew's best hurt bunny look.} Well apparently he feels like I need more happy stuff on here that isn't clouded with "I wish this damn house wasn't taking so friggin long!" statements... So here ya go! :) If you saw all of my photos on Facebook and feel like you got a good enough idea, feel free to stop reading. You won't hurt my feelings. ;) Otherwise, I'm happy to fill you in on our fabulous day!

Love! <3

 Sunday, September 2nd, was our twelve year anniversary. (plus two years of dating makes 14 years together! Holy cow that's a long time). So on Saturday, Mathew decided to take me on an all-day date. I don't think we've ever done that!  We called up the kids' favorite babysitter Tim (would totally recommend boy babysitters btw. They rock!) and we headed out to Franconia Notch, NH for a nice hike. We got really lucky I've gotta say. We got in the car and pretty much just randomly picked a place nearby to go! But the trail we went on was absolutely beautiful.

(Seriously though, can any mountain around here not be??)  It was a loop: up to one lookout point, over to another, then back down. At the first lookout point, Bald Mountain I think it was called, we found a nice flat rock to sit and relax for a while and have a little picnic. This I knew about. What I did not know was that he brought caviar & mini bottles of wine!

Too sweet! Then we finished our hike in perfect time to head to a movie. We went to see Hit & Run, a movie we had no expectations of going in, but we actually really liked it! (and our movie theatre is super cheap so we couldn't lose. Just four bucks a ticket! It's okay. You can be jealous. lol)

Finally, we got lucky again where we chose to go for dinner. We went to a restaurant at our local ski resort and we hadn't been there before. Food was great, nice atmosphere, and plenty of gluten free for me! Yay! (though it is kinda weird looking out over a ski lift with green grass...)

So anyway, that, in a nutshell was our anniversary celebration. Especially compared to our anniversary last year (read: flat tire and damaged trailer on the side of the road in the Bronx!) we had a pretty spectacular day! LOL!

Seriously though, we've been through entirely too much stuff in our 14 years together.  So many of you have no idea.  The things I have shared with you all here over the past year are only the recent trials & tribulations we've had to overcome, and certainly not the worst.  We've been through more than most couples have needed to endure in their entire lives, and we're only in our thirties!  But I've gotta tell you, I'd do it all again in a heartbeat.  For every moment of heartache there has been a hundred moments of unbelievable joy.  Through all of the pain we've gone through, we've been blessed to experience love we never knew existed.  We are not at all blind to the fact that we are so incredibly lucky to have our soul mate to lean on, and we will never take each other for granted. We work hard at maintaining what we have through all of the good times & bad.  And we were so lucky to celebrate this year in this new place we call home.  A place that we hope continues to bless us with more happy memories over the next many dozen years to come!