It's about time.

We are now back to being a one-mortgage-owning family...the old Layton house is no longer ours!!  Now to pay off the last of the utility bills for the place and then we can finish off the basement here.  Didn't we just do something along those lines? Anyway, sadly, I forgot to take pictures of our celebratory dinner out on Friday - we enjoyed some delicious seafood. 

Now that we don't have to worry about going back to the old house for repairs, cleaning, weeding, removing the bird house, etc. I could finally turn my attention to our yard.  I spent several glorious hours in the beautiful sunshine yesterday weeding, trimming bushes, and...remember those acorns?  I swept them up.  I enjoyed the acorn-free deck and patio for about 3 seconds before the acorns started falling again. 

The girls and I played Frisbee in the backyard and then we all enjoyed an impromptu fire pit and roasting of marshmallows in the crisp evening air.  Again, no pics - too busy enjoying ourselves.

I did get some shots of the girls making swings at the neighbors house yesterday.  The fabric ones were nice, but the owner of the house (a 95-year-old gentleman) felt sorry for the girls (his granddaughter was visiting for the weekend) and got out his crazy long ladder, rope, and put a real swing up with some rope he had laying around and some of our extra pieces of wood.   

Now we just need to buy some rope to set one up in our yard - we've found the perfect branch, and we'll definitely need to borrow the neighbor's extra-long ladder. 

It's Raining Acorns

 This cute gal asked it we could make 'cookie-dough' today, so of course I was happy to oblige :)

While making cookies, we kept hearing loud plops on the deck, to which Megan kept singing, "London Bridge Acorns falling down, falling down, falling down".  So cute.  We live in an area that has a heck of a lot of oak trees, for which are known for these lovely babies...

They are falling ALL over the place in our backyard, and are insidiously annoying, especially as you listen to them constantly plopping on the deck all day and night.  I'm told this is only a fall thing.  I have quit attempting to sweep them up because they are littered everywhere within hours of my sweeping efforts, so I guess I will wait until they have all fallen off.  Until then, happy stepping...

While in the backyard, I remembered that you guys haven't been given a sufficient tour, so here goes.

Our backyard doesn't have a sand pile (yet), so in the mean time, Megan has made do with a rock and dirt garden she found, spending hours out there digging and creating. 

Just after taking this picture of Megan, I rotated the camera back to the house and got this shot. 

I then stepped to the very back of our property, and took a photo of the soon-to-be garden area. 
That pink dot in the right of the picture is Megan.  Keep squinting...you'll find her.

Sometimes I feel like we are in our own private campground here, albeit with the sound of the highway, but in my defense, many of the campgrounds we have stayed at in Utah have been right next to highways. 

Just for fun, here's another view of Megan, and from this same location, turned to the east, you get a view of the outbuilding and another angle of the future garden.  It has three rooms - Rhea in the middle one, on the right side is our storage shed, and the left side will be a future bird room. 

 

Yes, that is a VERY big garden :)  Don't worry...we have lots of plans with the usual stuff, in addition to some fruit trees, with plenty of room for pumpkins, and a raspberry, blackberry and strawberry patch.  My favorite!!

 

Here's yet another view of the backyard, and eventually the hot-tub location down to the side of the house in that little alcove. 

 

 

Aahh, so many plans.  We have a very long to-do/ wish list. 

Good thing we are going to be here for a very, very long time to get to all those wishes :)

 

Stay tuned for news of our old house.  We just signed our portion of the closing papers yesterday and the buyers should be signing tomorrow and taking possession of the house on Thursday. 

When everything is finalized, I'll post our celebration festivities! 

Fair Time

 

 We made our traditional visit to the state fair. This time we took the train. 

 

 

The kids definitely thought that was cool. 

 

 

We of course visited the animals...

 

Even milking a cow...for real. 

 

 

We rode a ride...

 

 



 

 Obviously, Kimberly is not familiar enough with the workings of the Scrambler.  She really wanted to be the one squished.  Halfway through, she was reconsidering.  Haha...

 

They had some cool exhibits... 

 

 

All-in-all, a fun trip indeed.

On a complete side note, for those of you who like to read my stories on occasion, I got to write up this really neat story about a paralyzed guy who competed in his first triathlon this weekend thanks to help from his friends...

http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/09/14/paralyzed-utah-man-completes-first-triathlon-help-friends

Uh, nice hairdo?

The young women in our ward get to play volleyball this fall, and apparently they have different themes each week - last week being crazy socks, this week - crazy hair.  Kimberly and her friend, Kylee, took it to new heights.  I asked them how they planned to play volleyball and keep those hairdos in place.  They proceeded to show me their best volleyball moves whilst keeping hair intact.  Apparently hairspray does indeed work. 

So, you are probably wondering who the heck this Kylee girl is, especially if you've only ever seen Kimberly attached to the hip of her best friend Evie for the last 8 years.  Don't worry, Kimberly and Evie are still the best of friends and hang out very regularly, but now that we are in a new ward and neighborhood, Kimberly has had to branch out and make some new friends. 

Enter Kylee.  They are in several classes together at the junior high and get along really well, often "hanging" out at each other's houses.  In chatting with one of their young women leaders a few weeks ago, she told me how pleased she was to see the two of them become such fast friends, and had hoped someone like Kimberly would move in for Kylee since there wasn't anyone else really her age that she fit in with. 

So glad we could be the answer to someone else's prayer, when in fact, my prayers of having Kim find a new friend in our new area was answered too.  Of all the girls, Kimberly was the saddest about moving, so it gives me chills knowing our Heavenly Father knows our needs and watches out for us, even when it comes to small things like making new friends. 

As for the rest of us in our new ward, we are quickly realizing this ward is just as wonderful as the ward we left.  I'm sure you have all heard the story of the bishop who asked the newcomers how they liked their last ward, to which they replied by saying they loved it.  The bishop smiled, and said they would love their new ward too.  I truly believe that is the case with us. 

We have been here for two months, and we are still getting treats and welcome visits from people in the ward - just this week a plate of cookies from a whole family who biked over here on Monday night to introduce themselves, a couple who brought over a watermelon last week, and another family who brought over some ever-so-delicious spice cookies.  Still dreaming about those...must get the recipe. 

Before this becomes a novel, I shall end here.  Suffice it to say, I think I will go see how much hairspray I have left...

Peach Days

I am appalled at how long it has been since my last posting!!  I have to confess, our lives really have been uneventful of late.  We're finally all moved in.  John has finished up Rhea's bird mew by retrofitted one of the outbuildings in our backyard, so now she's nice and comfy in her new pad.   

 


Now we are in the process of tearing down her old mew per the request of the buyers.  Our old house should be closing in the next week, so fingers crossed this one finally goes through.  It should - we're told their loan has come out of the underwriting process with flying colors (according to their agent) and the appraisal will be done this week.   

The girls are enjoying school.  Kimberly (8th grade) is at the same junior high, so no big changes for her, though she has even more friends now that she's become acquainted with several gals in our new neighborhood.

Alicia (6th grade) and Natalie (1st grade) are attending a new elementary, but again, they have made several new friends here, so they have fit in nicely and are enjoying it.  Phew.  I was so worried about them making friends.  I needn't have worried, because this is turning out to be a lovely neighborhood with plenty of friends to go around.

The best part of our new house?  My girls get to take a bus to and from school!!  ...even better, is they love it.  No more trudging home after school because I made them walk (such a mean mother...)

I think I forgot to mention earlier in the summer that I got a new job assignment with the paper.  I am really excited about it.  I used to cover two cities and all of their city meetings, which I have to confess, were terribly boring.  I absolutely hated going each time, and even worse, was writing up yawningly boring stories from the meetings. 

My editor called me in and asked how I felt about covering the Davis School District board meetings instead of covering cities....Yay!!  Those meetings are highly more entertaining, and the stories have been delightfully interesting to write up.  I still write up a lot of other features stories, but every correspondent has to cover a city, or something along those lines. 

Yesterday we enjoyed Brigham City Peach Days with Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Joe.  Grandma treated the girls to some rides...

 

Prior to that on Friday, Megan and I enjoyed a Mommy and Me class at one of the local trampoline places. 

 

We had a ball together, and I got a nice workout taboot.  We might have to do that again.

Well, those are our latest adventures.  Hopefully next time it's not such a long hiatus before I post again.