Our Week Went As Follows

We've had a good week at the Rimington household. 

 

Alicia has spent the last couple of months working with the stage crew for the school play and they had their performance this week. 

 

 

It was quite cute and she had fun hanging out with several of her friends, who were also a part of the crew. 

 

Also this week were some fun Easter activities, including this one with Natalie:



Every Friday, I go in and help with Natalie's kindergarten class, which is way fun because it's the day they do centers.  This week, they had their Easter party instead of centers and I got put in charge of doing the craft.  I had them make tissue paper collage carrots and eggs (not shown here).  They turned out super cute and the class enjoyed working on them.

 

Also, the weather has been delectably warm (high 60s), so John and I took advantage of it for our weekly date this weekend by popping the bikes into the trunk of the car and heading up to the hills for some mountain biking. 

 

 

We spent two hours up there - good thing, because I needed to burn off that piece of cake (okay, maybe two pieces) I had after lunch.

 

 

 

We had some awesome views.

 

Some of my Favorite Things

I was looking around my house the other day and realized I have several prize possessions I shall share with you just for fun.

 

John made this for me years ago when my grandma gave us her glass grinder she didn't use anymore.  I just love it because the light coming through the stained glass makes it even prettier.  Shortly after he made this, John taught me how to do it too.  We'd put the kids to bed and then spend hours together working on our projects we did as Christmas presents for our parents.  It was really a lot of fun.

Speaking of glass, this is a gorgeous blown glass vase that is also one of my favorite pieces in the house.  When John and I went on our honeymoon along the Oregon Coast, we visited this really neat glass shop where they did demonstrations.  We would have loved to buy one of the blown glass items, but we were poor college students, so we refrained.  Ten years later, I happened to be at that same shop while visiting my family, and not being poor college students anymore, I surprised John with this vase for our anniversary. 

What we could afford on out honeymoon, were these two pictures. I love looking at them because it reminds me of our honeymoon. 

 

Also in our bathroom is this orchid we bought on Valentines Day.  It has been a month and a half and it's still going strong!  I really like looking at it because it reminds me of an orchid our aunt bought for us two years ago when things were not going so great for John and I.  We had truly hit a low point in our lives with the birth of Megan, John traveling a ton, and adjusting to life with four kids, which really took its toll on us. 

Sadly, the orchid we were given by our aunt died just a few weeks after we received it.  We were determined to get through our dark time, and as we did, I wanted to celebrate with a new orchid that is now thriving, as are we.  It also helped that we did quite a bit of research on how to properly care for orchids (and how to properly take care of each other). 

This post would not be complete without one of my absolutely, most-favorite things in the house, my beloved chocolate chips.  I buy them in bulk, and still go through them insanely fast because of my love for anything homemade with chocolate chips. 

Another of my favorite things in the house is our travel wall.  When John and I got married, I had a plate from Turkey I had bought on a cruise my Grandma Lynn took me on back in high school that led us up the Danube River.  John had purchased a plate in Japan while serving his mission, so we hung both of them in our teeny apartment up in Logan.

We decided it would be fun to keep collecting plates for all the different places we went, so we've done just that.  It's always fun to hunt through shops while we're out traveling to find just the right plate to put on the wall. 

I have to brag about John again - he spent countless hours working on this for my Christmas present several years ago.  He used his dad's lathe and it's absolutely beautiful, another one of my favorite things in our house. 

Another favorite thing, which just so happens to be a favorite for all of us, are our two game closets - full of games.  We truly do play all of these games.  The ones we didn't ever play got demoted to the basement (not pictured). 

 

 And a blog post about my favorite things in the house wouldn't be complete without pictures of my family, all taken today:

Speaking of games, that is exactly what John and Alicia are doing as I type this posting. 

Kimberly spent part of the evening working on a latch-hook rug she got from Grandma Rimington for her birthday.   

 

 

 Natalie and Megan have spent the last hour playing with the dress-up box. 

 

 
 

  and before playing games, Alicia spent the afternoon working on these crafts.  

 

These are a few of my favorite things.
I am truly a blessed woman.

Um, Summer is Here Already?

 

Though the buds still have yet to sprout on the tree, there are still a few patches of snow here and there, and the calendar hasn't even hit the official start of spring, we are experiencing a weird bout of summer with these ...

Check out all those mosquito bites!!  We are all being eaten alive around here - and fighting over the itching cream - now that the temperature is in the 60s.  I haven't even put away all of our winter stuff yet!  Good grief.

On a happier note, I caught these two playing contently in the bathroom with their Polly Pockets this afternoon.  Too cute. 

A few of my cuties...

 

I sat down to play the piano for a few minutes this morning, so Natalie and Megan pulled out their dress-up box and started dancing to my songs. So cute! I love that they enjoy playing with one another. 

 

Last week Alicia's class got to go to Abravenal Hall to see the Utah Symphony perform.  They needed some parent volunteers.  They didn't have to ask me twice.  We had a great time. 

New House - Almost

We almost bought a house this weekend. 

Seriously. 

Met with a real estate agent, talked to a mortgage lender, toured the house, and had an offer ready to send in to the agent.

Just so you know, we weren't in the market to buy a house, nor were we even looking at houses or felt it was time for us to uproot our family.  We did just finish a fantabulous basement, and are still enjoying the luxurious master bathroom remodel, so nary a thought about moving any time in the near future.

That is until I drove past a house in East Layton on my way to drop Kimberly off at a new friend's house for a violin duet rehearsal. 

I drove by it and fell in love.  It had a complete, unobstructed view of the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island because it sat on a hill, and was sitting next to a huge pasture (aka, no backyard neighbors). The yard was incredible - a lovely .35 acres, with a beautiful wrap-around porch for enjoying the gorgeous view, and from what I could tell peaking into the front window (yes, I know...snooping...I acted like I was going to ring the doorbell, and discovered from a quick glance next to the front door that no one is living there right now). 

I fell in love even more from my sneak peak when I saw the beautiful grand entryway and divine living room/dining room with all the windows you could possibly put in to take full advantage of the view. 

I zoomed home to see what the listing price was, and placed a call to the real estate agent. 

We were in luck - it was priced just for us, and I knew fate had lent its hand in our direction so we lined up a tour of the house on Saturday. 

I was so excited about this new-found house that I couldn't even sleep the night before. 

We met with the real estate agent, who walked us through the house. 

My hopes of the house meant for us slowly slipped from our grasp as we toured the house and saw the problems mounting - massive water damage from the master shower leading down into the dining room, a kitchen that needed a huge overhaul, of which included a miniature oven that wouldn't have even begun to think about fitting my cookie sheets that I use every few days, large cracks in the stucco, a deck that was in severe disrepair, a master bath from the 80s that needed a complete remodel, not to mention the extensive water damage to fix, a driveway that would have needed thousands of dollars to redo, stairs leading down to the basement that were way too steep and would have to be redone...and the list kept going. 

We went for a drive, then out to dinner, discussing the pros and cons of taking on a house with so many repairs.  It still seemed doable, so we wanted to make sure we could seal the deal in good conscience after giving it some time and prayers.

The next day we had our answer.  It wasn't meant to be ours.

So, I learned a very real lesson about not trusting something by just looking at the outside - it may seem like a dream, but underneath a fancy view, there may be massive problems lurking underneath. 

I'm not sad we refrained from making an offer. 
Our house may have a small yard, and a teeny, weensy view of the mountains over by Antelope Island, but its our home, and it is truly filled with love (and only minor repairs), just the way I like it. 

A Few Trains To Go Aound

First and Foremost, Happy Birthday to this gal, who is now....13!!!

 

She has been saving up all of her babysitting money from the past several months to buy a Kindle Fire.  She was still a few bucks short, so we gave her the option of using our birthday money to contribute, and it was enough to purchase it.  She is one happy birthday girl. 

On another note, I have to post about sweet Alicia.  She has been saving her money as well from odd jobs she does around the house, and has accumulated a little nest egg.  She asked if I would take her to Claire's (a jewelry shop) last week.  I thought she had intended to get something for herself, but when we got there, she showed me the cutest Big Sister/Little Sister necklaces she purchased for Kimberly's birthday.

 

It makes my heart happy to see them doing sweet things for each other like that.

Speaking of sweet things, Kimberly made these oodles of goodness for us yesterday:

 

 

I forced her to put chocolate chips in half of them.  If it was up to her, she would keep everything chocolate-chipless around here.  Did she seriously come from mine and John's chocolate-loving genes?

 

Back to the main title of this post.

We journeyed up to Ogden's Union Station for their model train show on Friday evening.

 

 

I was prepared to be unimpressed, not being a train lover myself, but I was fascinated, as were the kids. 

They had numerous hands-on train sets for them to play with, not to mention the massive Lego creations they had set up around some of the model trains. 

 

 

 

Way Fun. 

In other funness news, we also celebrated Kimberly's birthday at Boondocks yesterday with go-carts and arcade games.

 

Suffice it to say we had fun - so much so that I forgot to pull out the camera.

We've all done this, right?

 I used to build forts just like this all the time with my siblings. 

 

 

 

I absolutely love the fact that this kept the two younger girls busy for quite some time today

(and kept Megan out of trouble)