#2,251 Greenlight.

When we were approached about Skyping with a producer out of the blue in 2014, we never believed for a second it would go anywhere or that we could ever possibly get a show on HGTV… But Wednesday we got a phone call that will change our town and our lives. Season 1 of Home Town starts filming this spring. We got the series greenlight, y’all!

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And we announced it today at the annual chili cookoff. The timing made so much sense to tell our Laurel family all together. I said the “thank yous”, then Ben got the mic to tell the news… But just like at our wedding when he began to say his vows, he got emotional out of nowhere and couldn’t make the words come out, so he grabbed me for a kiss, collected himself, spilled the beans, and then we all cheered the big news together while Homegrown by Zac Brown Band echoed around the buildings on Central Avenue.

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This couldn’t have happened without you amazing people who told your friends and watched the pilot and rallied for us. What it means for Laurel is that we now have permission to dream as big as we want, we can open those stores and restaurants that we feared didn’t seemed feasible, we can buy houses on the fringe streets that need the most love. We’ve all been empowered to take this as far as we want, to change a tiny town and the hearts of the naysayers who said it couldn’t be done. Tonight I’m celebrating and thinking of my favorite quote from Annie Besant that my daddy emailed one day out of the blue when I was still working in the cubicle so many years ago:

Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly as a splendid adventure.

Are y’all ready for this crazy journey, friends? Let’s go!