Us with Our Parents on Our Wedding Day

If the old saying, "It takes a village to raise a child" is true, we certainly have that village nearby. While our "village" isn't one that is huge, both sets of grandparents and our siblings live in our community. Since we are both working, each grandma LOVES that they both get to have one full day a week to spend with their grandchild. And if we do want to get away for an evening, we have a list of relatives all vying for their turn to be the babysitter. With our son, we've never had to have anyone other than a relative watch him while we were away.

Matt’s Family in Outer Banks, NC

Amber is the oldest in her family with two younger sisters. Growing up with sisters wasn't always the greatest thing during the adolescent years (unless we were mad at our parents at the same time), but they have turned out to be two of the most cherished people in her life. She and her oldest sister are now best friends, inseparable in fact (just ask Matt). They talk or see each other daily and she and her husband live right around the corner from us. They have just given birth to their first child, a son, in July and we all hope their little boy will have a cousin that's close in age to play and grow up with. Amber's younger sister is 15. She sleeps over at our house on occasion and loves to play with our son and his toys. She'd also love nothing more than becoming an aunt once again.

Matt has one sister that is 13 months younger than he is. Being so close in age, they naturally grew up close to one another, and now she and Amber are close friends as well. With Matt's sister being single and unattached, she helps us maintain our youthfulness and spunk so we don't fall into that rut of just being an old married couple!

Our Home

Our home is a three bedroom, two bath ranch style in a new subdivision that is filled with young families like ours (six children under the age of five live across, beside and behind us). We live in a safe and quiet neighborhood, and since our house is at the very end of our street, there is very little traffic that comes down our way. Our yard has a lot of room to play and two of Matt's projects last year were building a new jungle gym for the neighborhood kids to play on and a shed to store all the outdoor toys and sports equipment in. Our house is close to some fun things for children, like the county fairgrounds (where we can sit and have friends over to watch 4th of July fireworks), a swimming pool for humid summer days, and a place to get ice cream if we feel like talking a long walk.

Our Back Yard

The schools in our community are very good and have a lot of great programs and extra curricular activities that are recognized statewide, from athletics to show choirs. We live in a medium sized town of around 40,000 people and are within about 1 ½ hour drive in any four directions to a larger city that offers concerts, shopping, zoos and great restaurants. We love living in the Ohio and being in the Midwest. We truly feel as a whole, the people here are hardworking, down to earth, friendly and genuine.