In 2009 I (Melissa) started a family blog to share stories and pictures with my family across the country. I was living in Utah with a new baby and my mom and grandmas were back home in Indiana, so a blog was an easy way to stay in touch.
When I’d go somewhere like a church function or have friends over for dinner, people would often ask for the recipe to a certain dish. I knew an easy way to share information, a blog! So I told them I’d post it on my blog and they could find it there.
I posted my first recipe online in the fall of 2009, my famous caramel dip for apples. That’s where this all started.
In 2011 I noticed other people posting recipes online and making businesses out of it. I knew I could do that too.
At the time we were remodeling a house in central Utah. I had 2 toddlers and a baby, all 5 of us were living in one room while we gutted and remodeled the rest of the house. I didn’t have a kitchen so I was washing dishes in a bucket (for 9 months!). I told myself I better share this story because it was too crazy to believe.
I started blogging regularly because of this house. As we were removing walls we would find stuff in the walls! We found a violin, royal icing roses, old board games, magazines, records, pictures and more. Everything dated from the early 1950’s and it was so much fun to share this journey.
We moved out of this house before we got to enjoy it much.
Basically as soon as we were done remodeling we sold this house and moved to my husband’s home town in Southern Utah.
We moved home to build a hardware store attached to the existing family grocery store. We lived in a little rental right behind the grocery store and basically in the parking lot of the hardware store.
My handy husband designed and built the hardware store (he’s a Civil Engineer by trade) and we lovingly stocked the shelves.
In 2015 we started our next grand family adventure: DIY building our dream farmhouse.
We started small with running utilities, water to the existing orchard, and a clean out of the shed/barn on the 7 acre property.
January 2016 we broke ground!
This was a true DIY project that took us YEARS to complete! My husband did 93% of the work himself subbing out a few odds and ends like putting in the heating and cooling system.
We dug our basement, poured our basement walls, framed, roofed, plumbed, wired, drywalled, and on and on and on over the space of 2 years.
This was a huge labor of love and after remodeling a house and then building and opening a hardware store, I was completely exhausted and jaded. I know the internet makes things look like all before and after pictures, but please know this was one of the most trying times of my life. One I’m grateful to have gone through but wouldn’t want to repeat.
We moved in to a partially finished house in January 2018!
We finished adding trim, siding, the porch decking, lots of other detail work for next year.
The view behind our house is soul filling.
And after a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears. We built a house and turned it into a home.
And then things changed in 2025
Things behind the scenes were changing and much to our disappointment, the hardware store that we built and planned to retire with was sold to a different family member and we needed to pivot.
After some deep soul searching we decided to move our family across the country in the summer of 2025 to Vermont to start over. We left our home, our family, and our lives in Utah to go on an adventure together.
We moved to a little town near the Canadian boarder in Vermont and bought an apartment complex for Thomas to manage and work on for his job and our new retirement plan. Vermont has been a soft place to land and we’re grateful to be here.
We never thought we’d end up so far from both of our homes but we’re learning that home is where you make it. Our first New England summer and Autumn have been magical.
And here’s a little more about us and our story.
Thomas and I are are dreamers and do-ers, which is a really fun combination and we are very evenly matched in those qualities.
The best part about being dreamers is there’s always more on the horizon.
It’s a continual work in progress and I hope you’ll stick around to see the journey unfold!
8 Things you might find interesting about Melissa
- I have 5 kids who are 18-10 The first is a girl followed by 4 little boys who are very close in age.
- My brain is good at organizing things like meal plans, food for parties, packing for vacation, and chore charts for kids. It’s kind of like a puzzle in my mind and one I’m good at solving.
- I love love love to grow food. It’s probably my #1 hobby. I love to grow food, eat food, plant food, can food, dehydrate food, plan parties around food, and everything in between.
- I love water. I love to swim in it, hear it, be near it, and smell it.
- I’m years into a really significant health journey that has resulted from dealing with chronic infection (I had a toe amputated right before Thanksgiving 2019 and as small as a toe is, the surgery was so hard to recover from) and then I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease a few years after that. Food, especially sourdough bread baking, has been majorly healing for me.
- I grew up in Indiana and consider myself a Hoosier and Midwesterner still. I spent roughly 20 years in Indiana, my next 20 years in Utah, and now we’re in Vermont (maybe it’s the next 20 years!)
- I married Thomas when I was 20 and he was 22. We were babies! I’m so grateful to grow and mature with such an insightful and kind person.
- I’ve been blogging since 2009! I love sharing my recipes, photos, and life snippets with you all. Thanks for being here.
