GREEN BEGINNINGS: The Story of How We Built Our Green & Sustainable Home uses our true story learning about, planning, and building our green home to explain and help others understand green homes. The home, affectionately referred to as the Green Beginnings House, was awarded the LEED Silver designation from the U.S. Green Building Council, the nations authority on green design and construction. The USGBC's LEED Green Building Rating System is the national benchmark for green design and construction. The Green Beginnings House has also been selected by the USGBC as a LEED Project Profile, one of only eight homes nationwide that serve as examples of the LEED For Homes program on its website and educational materials. Written in plain, non-technical simple English, our homespun narrative style of storytelling, interjected with valuable lesson boxes, provides for an enjoyable read and meaningful learning experience. This authors address what the terms green and sustainable mean as they relate to homes, provide a historical overview of where the notion of green homes came from, and explain the criteria for green homes as defined by the USGBC's LEED For Homes program. We cover builder and architectural contracts, site work, permitting, green and sustainable recycled and reclaimed materials, products, and systems in the order which they were experienced. The actual construction process is presented in a captioned photo essay with over 100 sequentially presented color photographs that showcase what various products and systems look like. A glossary of terms and language are helpful resources that aid comprehension, and our closing "Reflections in Hindsight" point out key items to remain cognizant of when building green. The book is unique as it provides insight written from the homeowners perspective by a couple who experienced building a green home that ultimately became a published example of the nations benchmark for green homes by the U.S. Green Building Council.