the conspiracy

I'll begin at the beginning.  Once upon a May 15th, Carl and Deanie gave birth to their first born.  A daughter.  She grew up, got married, had 2 children, got saved, had 2 more children and purposed to live her life simply and joyfully.  Everything seemed to be going along according to plan (pretty much) when (ironically) on this May 15th (it was actually the 16th but we'll pretend it was the 15th because it fits the story better) something inconceivable happened.

This joyful daughter and 2 of her children were kidnapped!  It was horrible, really.  This sweet young man whom she had always trusted pulled right up, parked at the curb like he always does and said, I'm here to pick you up. Just like that.

Well, what's a simple girl to do?  I gathered my girls and obeyed.  Who knows what might have happened had I put up a struggle.  He proceeded to drive me to none other than the home of the master mind, his mother and my dear friend.  Insult to injury... how could this be?

Now the fun begins.  It turns out there are more friends in on this.  The master mind really did her work. Others began showing up and before you know it we had packed 2 vehicles and we were off to ...

...they wouldn't tell me a thing.  But 30 miles later another friend was waiting at Starbucks (now they are treating me right) so we gathered her in and took off over the mountain.  At this point I was still completely clueless as to what was going on, and I could have cared less.  That's how trusting I am.  Or how old I am. Short term memory loss you know.

When we arrived at our destination (a few hours later) I let out a little WOO HOO!  What gorgeous fun.  The beautiful Deepwood estate in Salem.  We spilled out of the cars and inhaled the beautiful valley floral fragrance and headed to the house.  And what do you suppose we found when we rounded the corner?  A dear valley friend (who's kids are my kid's dear friends) and a dear valley daughter!  Is this too much?  Yes, too, too much!

The home is a turn of the century Victorian that was built for $14,000 at a time when the average home cost between $500 and $1000 to build.

The grounds are still authentically maintained according to the original commissioned landscape design.  It includes formal gardens as well as a nature trail that leads down to the creek.  Everything was 'just so', much to the chagrin of the mastermind who is completely 'real' and couldn't handle even the thought of all this pretense! ;)

A nice place to visit but can you really 'live' like this?  Or call it home?  Hmm, my imagination is having fun...

Blessings, Debbie

*forgive me for being so late with today's post.  I had a lot of trouble uploading my pics and am thankful to be finished!  Whew...