Day 3:

I am thankful for my home. Mark and I went to Home-a-Rama today with my parents and my sister and her husband. I'm not sure if you've ever been to a Home-a-Rama, but it is basically a chance for architects and home builders to showcase their designs by building extravagant homes in a new neighborhood that are open for people to tour in the area. My dad gets free tickets to these things because he's in the lawn care/landscaping business so thats why we always go. They are usually priced in the $800,000 to over 1 million, so to say they are out of our price range is the understatement of the year, but we still enjoy going to look, dream and get decorating/landscaping ideas. (Ones that we can try to copy at a much lower cost.) Here is a sketch of my favorite house of the night.

 I've heard people say that they don't like going to Home-A-Rama because it just makes them discontent with what they have. For whatever reason, it doesn't have that effect on me, and when I got back home to my middle class house I felt grateful for what I do have. Sure there are things that I would like to update and change over the next few years, but it is perfect for Mark and I in this season of our lives. We live in a great neighborhood, located only 10-15 minutes away from our places of work, close to both of our families, and we will be able to afford it with only Mark's income when we have kids. It has enough rooms to start a family, have house guests down for the weekend, and have family over for Thanksgiving this year. (More on that later!) It has a fenced in backyard with a deck and a fire pit. It has a room over the garage that we currently use as a movie room/man cave and a fireplace in our family room that we can enjoy on cold nights. I could go on, but you get the point. I love my home and I love who I share it with. There are already so many precious memories written on these walls and so many more to be made.