Fall Break

Last Fall Break we did a week-long trip to national parks in southern Utah and Nevada. This Fall Break we finished moving into our house, watched mounds of TV, and were amazed by the rain all week in October in Utah. Ha! Moving takes a while. But aside from a console cabinet for our games and a chair for my room, both of which I'm waiting to be back in stock, we're all moved in and setup. I haven't really hung anything on the walls either, but that's going to take a lot longer. Here's a few views of some of the things I setup this last week. 

A plant stand for a few of my plants in the dining room. 

Bill's drum set. Happy to have that here and have a place for it! The kids love it so much. Aaron is planning to play drums starting in fourth grade when he can be in band at school. 

A few more plants in the dining room. Got that bonsai from IKEA. It was the last one and I already love it so much. 

Finally hung our barn door after it sat in our room for two weeks. I was so nervous to drill into our walls but it went off without a hitch and I love it dearly already. 

My cute little family tree. 

New bookshelf for the living room. 

Hooks in the kids' bathroom. 

Hooks in my bathroom. 

It's really just so good to be in our house. I feel very blessed to be at this point in life right now with things settled in after two or three years of very unsettled life. It feels really good. 

Views from this week

Not surprisingly at all, I spent the entire week moving in bits and pieces of our house and finishing things, interspersed with school pickups and making food and working. It's really coming together. We have a few things that we want still that are out of stock, but for the most part everything is here to make our house livable. It's been so nice to move in. It's like I've been holding my breath ever since we left Clemson three years ago and I can finally let it out as we are in our own space that we finally own and can make it just how we want. Feels incredible. And a huge stress relief. I had no idea I was mentally doing that but I can feel the relief now. 

Chloe decided this week it was time to learn her pedal bike. She absolutely rocks her balance bike and it was really just a mental block that kept her from riding. She asked Bill to help her and about two minutes later she was pedaling away. So great!

Genevieve wanted to die her hair blue and really, why not? Her awesome aunt was in town, who is great at hair dye, so we did a girls night over at grandma's house doing a semi-permanent blue dye. Don't tell her but it looks sort of green since her hair is read, but she likes it so all is well. 

And then of course, scenes from my house of rooms I've finished. This is our basement pantry overflow/food storage area. I built that yellow pantry about ten years ago before we left Utah the first time. It has served us well as a pantry in so many houses that didn't have one, but we finally have one here, so this is doing a new duty downstairs as overflow. 

Genevieve and Chloe's room. I need to purchase a smaller tabletop to sit in the spot under the yellow bulletin board, but otherwise it's done. 

Aaron's room.

Spencer's room. He has our digital piano on the other side of his room, which is so fun. We've been taking a break from piano lessons, but once I get my downstairs piano tuned, we'll be back at it and it will be so easy with two pianos for he and Genevieve to practice on. 

A new set of drawers for me by my desk. I bought a standing desk that raises and lowers, and it so so awesome. 

We took a break on Saturday to go pick pumpkins. It was lovely. Chloe found a friend to swing with at one point. 

The kids mostly had a great time picking pumpkins. 

They really are just so cute. 

Garage projects. I put up hooks for backpacks and coats. We have the shoe rack. I also did the station for their scooters and helmets. I'm thrilled to have an inside place to put all of those and have them both out of the elements and out of my house. 

I installed six sets of blinds on these two big windows on Saturday. I had to cut some wood to get them at the right height for the magnetic valance to stay on. It prompted me to finally buy the stand I've always wanted for my miter saw, so that's cool. I love having the blinds in. 

Moving in

I've spent the entire week moving in. I even tweaked my back in the process. That hurt for the last few days, but I got into the chiropractor today and the adjustment helped. Hopefully it can heal up sooner as a result. I love basically everything about our new house. It's been so much work moving everything in, but also so fun. We had our stuff in storage for 14 months, so there was some serious dejunking as I unpacked. I've taken at least four trips to DI so far and I have an entire truckload of stuff that needs to go again. Crazy how much stuff we accumulated! And I thought I had dejunked. Granted, when we left Seattle we couldn't donate anything, the dump cost to take stuff too, plus we were unemployed so it didn't really feel like the time to get rid of everything. Thankfully we're in a very different place now and the dejunking is therapeutic. 

Here's some of the shots I've taken from this week as we've moved in of things that have made me happy. 

Aaron and Chloe at the playground right after church. You can see our church in the background. It's just a couple blocks from our house. 

One of the things I found going through boxes is a new year of hand me downs ready to be brought out! I didn't realize it was time for that. So Aaron got a new church outfit, eight pairs of pants, and a couple shirts. Chloe got eight dresses, several pants and shorts, and two swimsuits. Genevieve got at least six dressers and a couple shirts. It was great. Poor Spencer only got one pair of jeans that somehow had gotten in the box, but hey, he usually gets new clothes anyway being the oldest, so he's not suffering. This suit coat on Aaron is just so adorable. 

My bathroom is done in gray hues. Got this comfy rug to match. 

The stair slide continues to be a favorite pastime for Miss Chloe. 

I paused to go to a friend's baby shower. I don't get to go to too many of those anymore. Most of us are past having kids, but this one was so fun with a bunch of my FiA friends. 

Living room. We're getting a bookshelf and a console table to house all those books and games boxes, but for now they're sort of everywhere. 

Bill and I did tackle the stack of boxes though and moved books up to bookshelves in kids' rooms and donated a bunch. This is what is left to go downstairs on the bookshelf when it arrives, plus those seven boxes of games on the left will go in the console that will go right where those books are once it gets back in stock at Costco. Could be a while for that so who knows when this room will be all setup but it doesn't stop us from enjoying those super comfy couches. We were going to buy a sectional but my mom is downsizing and she gave us this pair of couch/loveseat and my oh my, they are delightfully comfortable. She and my dad have great taste in furniture. 

The costume box is a big hit as well. This cheerleader outfit is maybe a tad tiny these days, lol. Last time she wore it was 15 months ago. She's grown! Although it's a more accurate reflection of the actual length of normal cheerleader dresses I guess! Hahahah! I love the batgirl belt she accessorized with. 

One part of our basement workout room. Weight rack and bench. This is going to be awesome. 

Kids' bathroom. Love the blues! 

Bill brought me hope our back feels better soon roses. He works across the street from the Salt Lake Trader Jo's. They're so beautiful! I made that vase, well glazed it, at a Mother's Day get together earlier this year and I adore it. It's yellow on the inside. 

We added a plug in the pantry. Love, love, love! 

This is the door we bought to cover our master bath door opening. It hasn't arrived yet but I'm so excited for when it does. 

Blue pine board to make a coat and backpack rack in our garage. 

Shoe rack, also in the garage. I'm thrilled to have them here and not in my house! And geez, so many shoes. That represents a pretty huge amount of money. We spent so many years subsisting on the tiniest of incomes as we were in grad school. Little details like a full shoe rack make me feel very grateful for the better financial place we are at now. 

These will be arriving shortly as well for my kitchen counter. 

It's feeling very nice to be putting our space together! I still need to tackle the basement storage stuff, the garage, and the food storage area, but most of the upstairs is pretty good. Feels very nice! 

We're in!

 It's been the craziest week of moving, but we are officially into our new house! Love it! It's moved in enough to resume somewhat normal life. We have places to sleep and our kitchen is unpacked, but it's still pretty chaotic otherwise. The rest is going to take a lot longer to finish though since Bill and I have to get back to working more and moving in less. But we're very happily here and settling in and I just changed a heap ton of addresses and got address forwarding from the post office, so it's the real deal. Hahah! I imagine in a week or two we'll feel a little more normal. For now I'm weaving through boxes to walk around the house and making lists of things I no longer have enough of, and it's delightful.