Primo Anniversario Alla Villa Pellegrini

Wednesday was a very special day here at Villa Pellegrini, but I was to bedraggled by a cold to write about it. Yesterday morning as I came downstairs after dragging schoolchildren out of bed, I looked out the rear windows, over the rolling hills and beautiful trees, and thought how fortunate to have such a breathtaking view. Then it occurred to me that it was our 1 year anniversary on that day. H had already left for work so I sent him the text, "Happy Anniversary." I knew he would get it right away--and he did.

It was love at first sight for me when we found this lot. We had absolutely scoured Shelby County and could not find what we were looking for in a lot to build on. Basically: lots of trees, hills, large lot, not expensive. That combination just did not seem to exist. That's when we started edging our way across the county line, getting a little braver and a little further out into the FC.

And then we found Lot 6. It had trees galore, a meadow with a grove of trees in the middle, a creek, and a wide open flat area on which to build a house. Of course we did not put V.P. on the flat space. We moved some dirt around and took out just enough trees to place her so she would be surrounded by trees, overlooking a dropoff out the back that rises up again in the distance in a way that makes you think of being in the mountains. In the front we can look out and see more trees, a pond and our lawn. It's all about the views here!

The first night, H and I were here alone. The second night, the girls joined us. We had to go pick them up from their after-school care, and on the drive there storms began gathering, and we could see tornadoes from the car! We got them picked up and back home again just in time for the electricity to go out.

By pure stroke of luck I had just unpacked candles and matches, and not only did I remember where I had put them, but I was able to find them in the dark. I was also able to put my hands on the crankable weather radio, which required a LOT of cranking. It had been my prediction early on that we would move into the house during an ice storm, so I was slightly off on my forecast.

It didn't take long for the tornadoes to die down and for the novely of crashing around in the dark to wear off, so we did what any local would (or should) do--we went to El Nopal for dinner. (I called ahead, and "Si," they had electricity.) We could not go the "usual" way because huge trees were blocking the roads. It was amazing driving along and looking at all the damage the storm had caused. We were so grateful that we didn't have any damage. We were a little iffy on whether we had homeowner's insurance at the time.

At El Nopal, we could enjoy margaritas and watch Dave Brown in all his weatherman glory on their big screen TV with the misaligned projectors (so the red, green, and blue were all slightly off). We were regulars at EN by that time and knew all the waiters by name. They knew us too, but what they didn't know is that we had just become bona fide residents of the FC.