08/11/2026
â¤ď¸ 19 YEARS â¤ď¸
Today Todd and I celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary.
Looking through these old pictures today, I canât help but think about everything it took to get here.
Todd bought this old property on Raymond Hill in 2001. We started dating in 2002, just as the real work of saving it began.
I still remember the first time he showed it to me. I basically looked at him and said, âYou have GOT to be kidding me. What are you doing?â đ
Todd saw something I didnât see yet. He loved the history of the old farmhouse and barn and was determined to save them.
Eventually, I saw it too.
For the next six years, rebuilding and preserving this property became our life. We jacked up the old post-and-beam farmhouse and moved it onto a new foundation, saving everything we possibly could. We repaired and re-supported the old barn rather than tearing it down.
Beginning in the spring of 2003, we lived in a travel trailer here for three springs and summers and part of one winter while we worked. Later we moved into one bedroom of the unfinished farmhouse with a microwave, a little college refrigerator and a shower that also happened to be where we washed our dishes. đ
I still have a picture of that old trailer with a fortune-cookie message I taped to it all those years ago:
âStruggle as hard as you can for whatever you believe in.â
Iâve kept it ever since. â¤ď¸
Then, on August 11, 2007, after six years of working side by side, we got married right here.
The people who were part of our lives back then know how hard everyone worked right up until the wedding to make it happen. Just days before, Todd and I were sleeping on the foyer floor because we had just finished sanding those old pine floors!
And somehow it all came together.
Todd made my dream of getting married in the old barn we had worked so hard to save come true.
One of my favorite memories from that day happened during our vows.
We had each written our own separately, without telling the other what we were going to say. Yet somehow we both talked about the same thing â that a good marriage starts with a strong foundation.
After spending the first six years of our relationship quite literally working on foundations together, it couldnât have been more perfect. â¤ď¸
And this property became part of our familyâs story before we even had children of our own.
Our nieces and nephews grew up coming here while we worked. They slept on mattresses on the floor of the unfinished farmhouse, explored the woods, played outside and, whether they liked it or not, helped us work. đ
Our nephewďżź Jack was only about one when this whole journey began. He and his cousins grew up right alongside this place.
Then came Silvia and Leo, and another generation grew up here â playing, exploring, getting dirty and occasionally even helping us work. đâ¤ď¸
Which made last summer pretty special.
Jack â that same little boy who grew up running around this property while we were rebuilding it â got married here himself.
Talk about full circle.
Over the years weâve continued caring for the farmhouse and barn, growing the gardens and flowers and eventually adding the neighboring land, bringing this little piece of Raymond we care for to about 45 acres.
Every time weâve had a wedding here, Iâve told Todd I want to get married here again because somehow it just keeps getting prettier. đ
This property has never simply been a piece of real estate to us.
Itâs home.
Itâs where we fell in love, where we married, where our children grew up and where generations of our family have made memories.
And thatâs also why this anniversary feels a little bittersweet.
Since our own wedding in 2007, only five other weddings have been held here. Yet after a private wedding in 2024, following a complaint from one neighbor, we received a Notice of Violation from the Town of Raymond citing things like a tent, portable toilet and parking signs and characterizing our property in a way we fundamentally dispute.
Nearly two years later, we are still fighting the Town, spending an unbelievable amount of money defending our family and our right to use the property weâve spent more than two decades preserving.
It has been financially and emotionally exhausting, and I wonât pretend it hasnât been heartbreaking.
But I refuse to let the last two years overshadow the previous twenty-four.
These pictures tell our real story.
We saved an old farmhouse.
We saved an old barn.
We built a home.
We are raising our children here.
We have shared it with people we love.
And somewhere along the way, we created our own little piece of heaven on Raymond Hill.
Nineteen years ago today, Todd and I stood in that old barn and promised each other that our marriage would have a strong foundation.
Life has certainly tested it.
But itâs still standing. And so are we. â¤ď¸
Happy 19th Anniversary, Todd.
Twenty-four years of us.
Nineteen years of marriage.
Two kids.
One very old farmhouse.
One very old barn.
And a ridiculous number of projects. đâ¤ď¸
And that little fortune I taped to our trailer more than 20 years ago?
âStruggle as hard as you can for whatever you believe in.â
Turns out we did.
And we still do. â¤ď¸
