There's no place like HOME!!!

Today is the 6 year anniversary of the day we moved to our home here in Payson.  I love my home; not because of it's size or layout because there are always things to change and certainly not because of the big yard which is sometimes full of more weeds than anything else or even because the inside is usually pretty clean.  I love my home because it's ours and there is no place I'd rather be raising my family. We have owned other homes; a brand new little home in Lehi and a 50 year old home in Orem. Some of my children were born in those homes and they will always hold a special place in my heart.  However, this is the longest that we have lived in one place and I hope to live here for a very, very long time.  
I was born and grew up in a home in Murray where my parents still live to this day. In fact, they have lived there for nearly 40 years.  While we visit often, lately I have given some thought to what that home represents.  It is where my parents taught my brothers and sister and I, where we laughed and cried and became the people we are today.  It is the home where I celebrated 19 Christmas mornings; where through my entire childhood there was a magnet on the fridge stating, "If you think you can, you can"; where I played hopscotch in the back yard and with my puppy Dusty on the lawn.  It is where I answered the door for my first date and where I tried to reheat leftover shrimp wrapped in tin foil in the microwave and nearly started the kitchen on fire.  It is where my children now affectionately call "Grandma and Grandpa's".  It will always be "home" to me also.  
My parents have considered moving closer to us after they retire and  I was pushing them to do it, of course. Then Shane and I and the kids spent a night there last summer.  We stayed over before the 4th of July so we could attend the early morning parade with them.   We tucked the boys into bed in Ryan and Brady's old room and the girls out on the couch in the family room and then went into the guest room, which happens to be my old room.  As I laid there that night, I felt 9 again.  While the room no longer has a pink canopy bed and purple shag carpet, I could see the same shadows cast on the wall that used to be there.  I could hear the same neighborhood sounds and I felt so much warmth from the memories of living in that home.  When my parents do move someday, I will miss that home and always cherish living there.  I am thankful for them for making it a wonderful place to grow up.
I hope that Shane and I can offer to our children similar warmth and fondness of our home here in Payson.  I hope they will remember the front porch swing where you can see the city lights layered behind fields of corn and a grain bin that remind them that we live in the country.  I want them to remember the sound of the wind that whistles through the small unseen crack on the front door and how I ring the bell in the kitchen window when it's time for dinner.  I hope they will remember the movies we watched in the theater room and doing homework at the kitchen counter; countless hours playing under the Cottonwood trees in the backyard and how their Dad likes to listen to Country Music Videos on Sunday afternoons.  But, most of all, I hope that they will always call this home and know that wherever they end up in life, their Dad and I wanted more than anything, a secure, safe, happy place for them to grow and learn and love, just as my parents did.  I hope they will feel that there really is "no place like home."