Things are coming together

My niece gave us a hammock holder  it works perfectly on the deck outside my bedroom. My kids love it!

Bill and I spent like three or four hours Saturday getting our garage organized. It was a lot of work but we had to fit a good bit of stuff in there and it feels so good to be done. All three cars fit in it plus our bikes and weights and tools. 

Weight rack actually in a usable place. 

Bikes fit in front of whichever car we park in the small garage. 

Even with the big ladder on, Bill can get the van in. 

Camping and sports and other gear. 

Broom organization. 

Snowboards, sleds. 

A break late in the afternoon for pedicures. 

Harry Potter Marathon Friday night while the boys were at a father son camp out. 

First day of school! 5th grade. 

3rd grade. 

8th grade. 

7th grade. 

New water softener!

And reverse osmosis water spigot. 

Love this so much. 

 So many things I’m loving in this house. Cupboards that fit everything. Big garage. So many living spaces. I’m inching closer to what I would consider house fully moved in. I want all the holes filled in and painted and the paint on the kitchen cabinets touched up. I want a few more carpets and a loveseat in my bedroom plus a sectional in the basement. A table by the back door to drop everything at. I’ll eventually switch out some light fixtures and add a fan or two. But even if I don’t do any of those things, I’m loving being here and how this home is working for us. 😍😍

A whirlwind of a month

August has been so busy. Just as busy as July, which seems almost impossible, but wow, it’s been a very busy summer. We got moved in this month, are mostly unpacked, and managed to fit in a birthday trip for Genevieve last weekend too. It’s been so intense, but satisfying, and the trip was really fun. 

Our house is starting to come together. Most of the boxes are gone. Most of the furniture is where it’s supposed to be. We’re still working on furnishing the basement. There’s lots of paint touch ups I want to do. I’m working on putting things on the wall. I just helped Chloe and Aaron get their room put together last night. We finally put sheets on their beds! They’ve been sleeping on a blanket on their mattress the last three weeks, lol. Never got around to changing that until last night. 😂

We went to my run club annual bbq last night. It was fun. These are some of my favorite people. We spend a lot of nights together getting our miles in. 

Spencer has been having the best time fishing this summer. He got stuck in one of the crazy thunderstorms we had this week. He got caught in the heavy rain/hail and thunder and lightning and turned one street early on the way home and got a bit stuck in their alley and had to go around. I was tracking him and it was nerve wracking! But he got home safely and all was well. All the rain we got this week sure was nice. 

One of the many fish he caught.

All Genevieve wanted for her 12th birthday was to go on a plane ride. Bill figured we could make that happen and sweeten the deal a bit. We flew to Denver early Saturday morning and took her to Six Flags Elitch Gardens all day we stayed nearly until closing at 9pm! It was awesome. We spent a very short night at a hotel near the airport and flew back in time for church Sunday. When we booked this trip it was before we had a clue we’d be moving this summer, and I had a Sunday calling. So I didn’t want to miss. It was totally worth it. We had the best time. 

We rode the carousel as our last ride of the night. 

She won this in one of the carnival games. 

The craziness of moving sort of caught up to me on the trip. We got rained out for a couple hours, right at dinner time handily, so we stopped for food and then I was so tired that I took a nap with my head on the picnic table while Bill and Genevieve did a couple of the throw uppy rides that I try to avoid. I came out and got a shot of them on this one. 

Teacups 

We spent too much time waiting in line, but hey, that’s pretty normal. I kept half falling asleep in line. 😂

In the airport. 

We got this tv hung this week. I love this fireplace and the built ins. 😍

Last week in Bluffdale

 I’ve been gathering my plants from all their nooks and crannies around my house and there’s so many! 😍 I love all my plants. My new house has lots of places to put them, so I’m super excited about that. I was working remote on Friday and had to take a shot of all these plants on half my desk. The air in my house is so clean. 😂

And a bunch more. There’s still another bunch in my bedroom too. 

There are seven bags of stuffed animals and a few couch pillows in my living room. The kids have been chilling in them all week. Haha! Doesn’t look comfy to me, but they’re definitely soft and squishy if you can muscle past the plastic bag feel. 

Chloe has finally started losing more teeth! She lost two teeth this week. 

Spencer has been on a fishing kick and has caught so many fish in the Jordan River and several ponds and canals around us. Bill shows him how to get them up on our grill outside. Win all around for that particular type of cooking. I’m ok without that mess in my kitchen, lol. 

Look! It’s taken four years, but Bill has started coming to run club with me! He’s training for a half marathon! Go Bill! I’m running it with him in the middle of September. 

Happy 39th birthday, Bill! We’re celebrating him as best we can this weekend in our home that is mostly packed up and ready to go. We got him some gifts, but the real gift for this birthday and the rest of all birthdays and anniversaries for the next 30 years, hahahahah, is we closed on our new home on Friday. We get the keys tomorrow and let the moving begin! I’m so tired of packing already, but really excited to start actually filling our new house and making it ours. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ This was our last week at our ward we’ve been in for the last nearly three years, and we had so many friends come up and wish us well and tell us we’d be very missed. It’s touching and I’m so grateful for all the friends we’ve made here in Utah. It has become home, which wasn’t what I expected four years ago when our world fell apart in Seattle. There are such good people here. I fully expect to find so many more in our new neighborhood. 

And just a silly one of Chloe last night while we were reading scriptures. 

This week felt like it went by at warp speed

Went to see fiddler on the roof up in Midway at a beautiful outdoor theater. My coworker was in it, and the show was fantastic.  Got this gorgeous shot of the full moon during intermission. It was so orange. 

We’re in full packing mode. My mom came over and helped me yesterday afternoon and we got so much done. 

All our stuffed animals and a few couch pillows. Seven bags! 😂😂😂

We went to a pool party thrown by Aaron and Spencer’s orthodontist practice this week. It got interrupted by lightning, but we had a great time before that. 

And it’s always time to take another picture of Genevieve with her kitty. 

For Chloe’s dance pictures back this week. So precious! 

 We close on the 29th. We have a renter. Things are working so well! 

My baby got baptized!

 She’s not much of a baby anymore! Chloe got baptized yesterday. We had tons of family attend. It was a wonderful event. We did a get together at our house after as well and it was all super nice. 

4th of July was AWESOME this year!

We had such a great week. Spencer did a couple bake sales. He got such good responses. Our neighborhood is great. 

I painted a bunch of shelves for the basement closet and got them installed. 

We installed a vanity in the half bath to replace the pedestal sink we wanted gone. 

We went to the coolest drone show on the 5th. That was really amazing.

And oh wait! We put an offer on a house on Wednesday and it was accepted on the 4th! Queue more celebrating for us! 

We have been looking for ages and ages and occasionally walked through homes, but never found one we wanted. We’d gotten so frustrated with the process we decided we’d settle in and just get comfy here. We focused on finishing our basement and just making this place super nice. And then this place popped up, and it’s perfect. It hits virtually every item we wanted in a home. We love the colors inside. We love the three-car garage. There’s a spot for both Bill and me to have offices so we don’t need to take over bedrooms anymore. It’s in Daybreak, which is somewhere I love and am really happy about the location. It’s on the top end of our price range, so that’s a thing, but hard to not move forward when it’s exactly what you want. So we did! We went and checked it out Wednesday, immediately put an offer in. We knew it wouldn’t be in the market long. We were right. There had already been two offers over asking price that had fallen through, including one with a nonrefundable earnest money that the couple lost when the wife came and didn’t like it. Whoops! 😳 They accepted our offer the next day and we’ve been reeling ever since, lol. We’re getting in high gear to finish the last bits and bobs that need doing in the basement. We finally bought a bathroom vanity and it arrives tomorrow. Then the basement will be officially done. Super exciting all around. 

We’re going to keep and rent our townhome, so now we’re madly doing a few painting projects as well to make it rentable. This is mid project on the upstairs bathroom. It was the first room I painted when we moved in and the teal was always a bit much. We’re painting it the color of the basement instead now. Gotta paint both kids’ rooms as well. Rainbow stripes and orange and blue spotlights probably won’t be up everyone’s alley, so back to white they’ll go. It’s exciting stuff around here!