Since about 5:30pm last night, we have had the keys to our home for ten years. After the mad scramble to clean out the rented unit in Sydney, we took our time driving up the coast before pulling in to the driveway and collecting the keys from the letterbox. The house was dark and very, very empty. We wondered what we'd gotten ourselves in to ("eeeek, it's real!").
The next day, our belongings arrived - the 20ft shipping container that everything fit into had gone via train and then truck. Charlie (codercat) arrived the day after that, and was rather grumpy. I don't think she liked flying or being cooped up.
Since that day in 2007, we've done a few things: turned the second garage space into my home office, renovated the pool, kitchen and laundry, gone through IVF to bring our two amazing children into this world, gotten through J's brain tumour and treatment, and tiled the loungeroom.
We've met so many people who have changed our lives since we moved into the area, people who we might never have met if we had moved to a house even a few streets away.
We had a small celebration of the event for dinner last night: I cooked J the dish that I first cooked for her, and we had a rather nice bottle of bubbly.
Here's to the next ten years!