Our Community

It cracks me up how much I fought moving to this town as a teenager many years ago. My parents had decided to move there, and when I came to visit in the middle of February from southern California, it seemed like such a small little town that I didn't want to move with them. I even worked out a plan to stay one more year in California and live with a teacher while I finished out the last year of the school I was attending. The plan was for me to spend the month of August here and go back to California at the end of the summer for school. My sister, whom I had never been close with growing up, had the same plan. Suddenly, she and I were 10 miles out of town with just our parents and our two year old little brother, half camping, while our dad built the house. It was an amazing month, full of good family stories, but, by the end of August, I had an amazing connection with my sister, and both of us didn't want to go back to California for school. Through many tears and lots of drama, we both stayed. Other than one semester abroad in college, I haven't left since.

Every time I travel and come back into town, I always have this sense of home and being so thankful for living here. For as much as I fought the move to this town, it certainly has a hold on me. There are so many small communities and groups that mix up and make this community such a wonderful place to live. Both Fred and I have always felt this amazing pull keeping us in here.

Fred has always been better than me at being social and joining various groups like volunteering for search and rescue and the fire department and playing in a band, to name a few. After having a child, I must admit to some grumblings from me about the amount of time he has been gone being a part of organizations outside of the home on top of working 40+ hours a week at his day job. Now all I can say is how full I am from eating all of my previous complaints because of the amount of energy, time and money these places are putting towards helping us.

It didn't take this accident for me to love this town, but I do see that once our life settles back down, I will want to find my own ways to give back to the community because they have given so much to us.