A home is more than a physical structure where people live. A home is a place where you can feel comfortable, belonged, and safe. A place where you can create personal connections and memories with people. I have two of these homes with two different families.

 My first home and family is my blood family where it's just me, my dad, and my dog. We don’t live in some fancy multi-million dollar house that looks like it was just built. I live in a 1930 house with four bedrooms and one bathroom. This house for being almost 100 years old has the most character in all of the houses I have lived in.

My house has a spacious kitchen where me and my dad spend nights cooking dinner together and where I feed my dog way too many dog treats for being the good dog that she is. 

The large living room is nature-themed with wood floors, brownish orange walls, painting of ducks and pheasants, an air hockey table in the corner where my dad and I battle against each other, a big TV where we sit on our big comfy couch to watch New York Rangers hockey games, and a stinky smell of hockey equipment that is drying from last night's practice. 

We have a two-acre backyard where my dad and I love to take our four-wheelers out and race each other through the yard, and watch animals that go over to the river that we have next to our house. 

We have a deck where we grill out on the weekends and watch birds eat out of the birdhouses that we made together. 

We also have a garage where I shoot hockey pucks every day. This spot is where we spend the most time because my dad always supports me with my hockey career and he always comes out to the garage to watch me and laugh at me when I miss the net or make field goals with the puck. 

This house holds the best family that I could have asked for. Even though the family is small just being my dad, my dog, and myself we have created amazing memories in the house.

The other family isn’t my blood but feels like it. It's a family that consists of 17 sisters and three motherly figures. This family is my hockey team. The house is the Ice Rink where we would spend almost 26 hours a week at the rink spending time with one another when training, dancing to Just Dance as a workout, and some of us even work there with each other at the rink. At the rink, we have created a family with each other where we can feel safe, comfortable, and belong there. We are a bunch of sisters who love spending time together but we also have those sister fights and drama that other households have. 

At the rink, we all share the same room which is our locker room, and if you can imagine having 17 girls in one room that has one bathroom and a shower we are always yelling at each other to hurry up, but in the end, this is where we create the best memories with each other.

I am a class of 2024 student which meant that this was my last year with this family it hurt when the season ended, but I know that when I come back from college on break this family will be there with open arms really to create more memories with and we will still be like sisters yelling at each other to hurry up in the locker room bathroom.

A home is more than a physical structure where people live. A home is a place where you can feel comfortable, belonged, and safe. A place where you can create personal connections and memories with people. These two families are what make my two homes special and what makes me love both families.