For the last couple of weeks, we’ve been taking some time to help my parents remove items from our family lake house. It’s been in the plans for some time now, but this week the house was officially knocked down and they’ll be starting over from scratch.

It’s a bit bittersweet. The idea of having a new lake house is obviously exciting, but it is a little sad to say goodbye to the current one. I’m pretty sure I was 13 or 14 when we first got it, so it’s been around for over half of my life and we’ve had some good memories there.

It was in pretty rough shape when we first got it, and we did a lot to fix it up. And by we, I mean mostly my dad lol. He put a lot of time into making it better – and safer! He actually fell through the second story bathroom floor when he replaced the tub cuz that’s how moldy and weak the floor had gotten. But he spruced it up nicely when all was said and done, and it turned into a very nice second home.

And not only did we make a lot of memories there when we were growing up, but it’s also where I lived for a while when I first came back to South Dakota. It’s actually the first place I’ve ever lived completely on my own – besides having Dobby of course – and it really did become special to me.

Last weekend, we spent some time tearing windows and doors out that we can reuse later down the road, and it looked like an empty shell of a building when we left. My dad was sad because it was a lot of work getting it to where it was. And it’s sad for all of us, because it truly is the end of an era, but we’ll have the memories with us forever.

Now, it’s gone and it’s time to start over. It’ll be exciting to see the new place come to fruition and I’m excited to make some new family memories there.

Here’s to the end of one era, and the beginning of the next.

Until next time! 🙂

Megan Nelson