Home Sweet Home

I've been working on this blog for awhile now; partly because I rarely can sit at the computer without someone pushing or pulling on me, or standing by waiting for a turn, and partly because it took awhile to sort though thousands of pictures to find the ones I needed. I wanted to post a history of the homes we have lived in to date. We have had the opportunity to move a lot and live in some interesting places and homes over the last 12 years, collecting experiences and adding children along the way. Someday, I think the children might appreciate seeing the home they came to upon their arrival. And I also feel that this is a tribute to my roll as a homemaker: setting up homes and making memories in them.

Home #1: Wyview in Provo, Utah. I don't even remember the exact address it was so long ago-- May of 1998 when we combined our meager belongings and moved in. I pulled this photo off the Internet as we didn't take any pictures of our home (nor did we have a digital camera anyway.) We lived here a brief year in one of the top, 2-bedroom units. It was our first residence as Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Gordhamer-- "newlyweds" (I always felt uncomfortable with that label.) Two months after we moved in, I graduated from BYU and worked in Provo while Joseph finished up his undergraduate education. We had fun times rollerblading along the river, attending the Provo temple, shopping at Food for Less, and filling up our Honda for $0.89 a gallon. That first year together in Provo was quite simple compared to life now and seems like a very distant memory.

Home #2: 12705 Fair Crest Court #303, Fairfax, Virginia (the top unit on the lefthand building.) This was indeed an exciting adventure for us to pack all our belongings into the smallest U-Haul truck and drive across the country to settle on the east coast. I was just barely pregnant with Abigail when Joseph took his first "real" job at KPMG in Washington, DC shortly after graduating from BYU in 1999. To date, this is the longest home we lived in at 3 years. We brought Abigail and Maggie home from the hospital on two different snowy, winter days to our cozy condo with the little gas fireplace on. I enjoyed setting up our home, painting, sewing for the nursery, and shopping for little things to add to the walls and corners. We also enjoyed our ward, the Fair Oaks Ward. And I can't forget the roses Joseph brought me regularly from the man outside his office who called to him, "Two dollars a bunch, 3 for five."

We loved living on the east coast. We often would take walks through the wooded area just beyond our home, especially enjoying autumn when all the leaves turned into striking reds and yellows. We loved going into DC and spending time on the national mall there. I used to take Abigail when she was a baby to all the Smithsonians, riding the metro into DC and meeting Joseph after work. We loved the cherry blossoms around the Title Basin and the tulips on Capitol Hill. We even enjoyed several 4th of July celebrations with fireworks exploding over the Lincoln memorial. Joseph had his longest commute here: a walk to the bus, the bus to the metro, the metro to downtown, a walk to the office, totaling 1 hour. That was the hardest part about living here. We also enjoyed many trips up to Philadelphia, into the Shenandoah to camp, Gettysburg, New York, Valley Forge and so on. The area was rich with history and heritage.

Home #3: 2259 Stone Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan. This too seemed like a brief stay from 2002-2004 (maybe because we were there only part of the year too.) We moved to Michigan for Joseph to attend the University of Michigan MBA program. We lived in university married housing, a kind of cabin-like environment complete with pine trees. We added no children while living here, but I have good memories of raising the girls and spending time with other young mothers supporting their husbands in various graduate programs. We enjoyed mornings on the banks of the Huron River with donuts to eat and feed the ducks (and tipping the canoe once with the whole family being dumped into the cold river.) We picked raspberries in the late summer and make freezer jam. My brother and his wife lived in Columbus, Ohio at the time and we always looked forward to their visits--it was the only time I had my family remotely close by. This was my first experience in a bitterly cold place and I guess it was good because it prepared me for more Midwest living.

Home #4: 19 Weynesbaan, Rijmenam, Belgium from 2004-2005. I called this my petite chateau. Not only was the structure quite amazing, but the home was fully furnished by the owner who was an interior decorator. This is only a picture of the back because, unfortunately, we don't have any other pictures. The front was beautiful, all brick, with tall windows and a rock path lined with hydrangeas up to the front door. The grounds were immaculate with hedges, herbs, more hydrangeas in the back, a little moat (mostly for water drainage,) a bridge, a troll's house (aka the shed,) apple trees and more hedges. A wooden fence covered with foliage surrounded the entire property.

After graduation, Joseph took a job with his current company, Cargill, and started out with a brief one year field assignment in Mechelen just outside Brussels. A year is quite quick and it almost felt like an extended vacation. We chose this house because it was beautiful and close to his office (he adopted cycling here and ended up biking to work most days,) however in retrospect, it might have been better to live closer to Brussels and the expat community. I was pregnant 9 of the 12 months we lived here and often felt lonely and isolated. Some days I thought of my home as Chateau d'If--the prison castle in The Count of Monte Cristo. We did have some wonderful times here though. I enjoyed walking up the main street to the village school to get Abigail or pick up my fresh bread from the bakery. We also spent many hours walking around the countryside full of wild berries, pastures with horses, and even a small, fragrant leek farm down the road. Joseph often helped the missionaries teach Romanian investigators and we were able to work with them and have them in our home.

We also had the opportunity to travel a bit in Europe. I kept busy planning our next trip whether it be Rome, Greece, Germany, The Netherlands, or France. It was even fun on the weekends to hop in the car and drive to Luxembourg for the day to see some castle ruins. Alexander was born in neighboring Bonheiden (and we chose his middle name Alexander because it was one of the most popular names in Europe.) Joseph's passion for chocolate was born here as well when we discovered Cote d'Or dark chocolate truffle bars.

Home #5: 3949 Games Drive, Minnestrista, Minnesota. Our very first home and yard of our own! And boy did we learn just how much money and time goes into a house. Joseph about broke his back laying all those concrete blocks, rolling out the sod, or planting pine trees. And I did my fair share painting (and even re-painting) all the walls, sewing curtains, or planting shrubs and flowers. With so much sweat equity, it isn't any surprise that I rejoiced over every tulip bulb that actually bloomed in the spring and mourned the hydrangea that didn't quite make it with the early fall frost. It almost killed me when we had to walk away from all of it--the sweat and the money (the housing market meltdown)--after only 2 years. In the summer of 2007 we packed up and moved on.

This first house has a lot of first memories tied to it. It is the first home that Abigail and Maggie really remember. They have fond memories of the park behind our house and catching frogs and toads in summer. It is the first garage we had that the kids could park their bikes in and where Joseph made a small work bench and built storage shelves. We walked our eldest daughter to the bus stop for her first day of elementary school and waved as she rode away on a big yellow school bus. It was the first traditional neighborhood we lived in and we made really good friends with people at church and in the neighborhood. And I can't forget the first time I had to shovel a driveway covered in snow or found myself behind a lawnmower when Joseph was traveling. We strung up our first Christmas lights on a house, across the roof line and around the pillars by the front door. Then weeks later, I hosted the big family Christmas party with Joseph's family, all of whom lived within an hours drive. We had a lot of good times in this house and it was probably the closest we've had to a "normal," settled life. The kids loved the unfinished basement with the climbing wall Joseph put up, swings, and monkey bars. It really was an endless project though.

Home #6: 15E Bright Hill Drive, Singapore. And so a big adventure began. I had never even set foot in Asia before and the next thing I knew, I was on a plane with the 3 kids and pregnant, moving there. After staying in temporary housing for 6 weeks (much like a hotel,) it was a welcome thing to finally see our belongings coming off a truck and into a home. A big, old musty home, but a home nonetheless. Trying to find a place to live in a big, foreign city and working with a limited company and personal budget is not an easy task. Often we didn't even know north from south as we drove around with the most obnoxious real estate agent possible. We finally settled on this place because it was really the only landed property, which was part of a condominium cluster, that had enough rooms for us that we could afford and that our agent showed us. (I was determined that I would not take an elevator to get to my front door and so that eliminated most of the places available.) So we set up camp here with a 2 year lease. Maggie began Kindergarten and she and Abigail rode the little shuttle bus that picked them up at the driveway to take them up to the Singapore American School. I spent a lot of time with Xander at the nearby Bishan park and going to church play groups. Within a few months, we added Ella Marie to the family and brought her to our home here.

We experienced much of our first impressions of Singapore here and really felt settled after the 2 years. We knew the lay of the land, where all the other expats lived, and how to get around in our Toyota Picnic. We often went walking on Sundays in the nearby reservoirs and on the forest path in the reserve across the street. It is here that we encountered our first monkeys and even had the unpleasant experience of having them on our roof, trying to get into the kitchen. We also became very accustomed to geckos and learned to live peacefully with them in the house. Just across the busy street outside was a local shopping mall and we would often walk there on Saturdays and get Subway for lunch (or Joseph liked to take the bigger kids to the Long House--the hawker center just down the road with local fare.) We had the opportunity to explore some interesting places in Asia while traveling in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia. However after 2 years, and pregnant again, it became apparent that we needed even more rooms and maybe a newer house if we were lucky.

Home #7: 7 Melrose Drive, Singapore. And we were lucky. I can't imagine a more ideal place to live and daily I feel so grateful that we found this house. Cargill sacked the old real estate agency (partly due to our complaints) and we had a much better agent this time around. We also knew a little more of where we were and that certainly helped. I feel really comfortable and content with where I am in life both literally and figuratively. I can't help but love the warm and lush tropical environment in Singapore; and with 5 pregnancies and all these moves behind me, I feel like I can stay here for a long time. I think we are at the point where we can see the buds on the trees that we hope will eventually mature into the proverbial fruits of our labors--fruit I look forward to harvesting down the road, probably in yet another home.

With the addition of Juliet to this home, we now have 5 beautiful, healthy children. Abigail and Maggie are almost done with another successful year at school and we have been so pleased with their growth and progress. Xander will soon begin school and is eager to join them. They are all three growing in the gospel as well. Joseph has a challenging and rewarding career that he enjoys, providing opportunity for growth and progress. We also have had many opportunities to serve in the church and grow spiritually. Obviously this hasn't all happened in the brief 6 months in this home, but is part of a process that has taken place in all the homes along the way. It all goes to show that while where you live might be interesting, it is how you live that counts.