The Lowdown on the VP

A number of my blog readers have asked what all the construction...and VP from my last post is about. Well to give you the full picture I have to take you back 5 years when we first moved to the United States. We were supposed to be here temporarily - 2 years only. But when we were looking for somewhere to live we found that remarkably the mortgage payment to buy a house here was the same as the cost of renting one. So we decided to buy....but where? We had only just moved here....didn't know a good area from a bad one....didn't really know anyone here so we couldn't garner any trusted opinions....so we just got out a map, marked the map with where the kids school was and where my husbands work was and decided to buy a house somewhere in between those two. Pretty impressive well thought out strategy right?????
In retrospect, I marvel at our blind faith that everything would just work out. And work out it did. We lucked into the most AMAZING neighborhood. A small culdesac with just 6 houses on it. Quiet, kid friendly and with the most wonderful neighbors anyone could ever ask for.
But after 5 years our house started to feel a little cramped. With 3 growing children, a garage full of "things", a home business and the idea of homeschooling all of a sudden we seemed to be outgrowing our home. The logical thing to do was to sell our house and buy something bigger but something about that just did not seem right. When we sat down to talk about our options, the vote (kids included) was unanimous. We would stay put and just make the house we have a little bigger. A couple of extra bedrooms, a bigger garage.
And every day we know we made the absolute right decsion to stay. Here are some pictures of what was happening at my house this weekend. My husband (with the red shirt) is adding a paved patio to the front of our house...and before you know it he had a whole group of helpers. They weren't asked to help they just came over and got to work. These are our wonderful neighbors ...and we just LOVE 'em.