Outside Pics of the House

Although by last night you couldn't tell, I spent at least an hour or two raking the leaves in the front and back yard. Of course the wind decided it needed to blow yesterday and knock half of the leaves from our tree back on to the ground so that it doesn't look like I did any work.

This separate area was blocked off with two layers of these bricks, and we decided to use about half of them to build a fire pit. We will be building a cheap fence in the spring to separate this area (so the pup can't get in) and plant a garden in there.

We had a fire in our fire pit the same night we built it. We roasted some marshmallows and enjoyed the heat, while Aspen enjoyed stomping out some of the rogue ashes.

We have two of these Bradford Pear trees in our yard. And although most other trees in the area changed colors months ago, our trees are just reaching their peak now. The colors are absolutely astounding.

A view of the front of our house. You can see both of our Bradford Pear trees in all their glory, and the mountain looks beautiful behind. We have such an amazing view of the mountains from our home, and we live only about 5 minutes from the canyon entrance. Perfection.

Our home - updated

We are finally (almost) completely settled in our home. There are still one or two or three boxes that need to be unpacked and put away, but they are doing just fine sitting in our "storage rooms" We got most of pictures and decorations hung on the walls this week too. We had a lot of free time this week because I didn't have school to teach, and we were able to get lots of things around the home done. We even did some yard work this week. Raking leaves, power washing the house, building a fire pit with spare bricks that were left. So our house is finally coming together and we think it might just be the coziest thing ever. We are so happy coming home to OUR HOME after work, and it helps that its so close to work as well.

And for your pleasure (and journal keeping), here are a few pictures of the updates. :)

kitchen.

kitchen table. and a pup!

kitchen, leading to the garage

living/sitting room.

electric fireplace. so warm.

work out room.

office. its still a little messy, its being used to hold extra pictures and things  that I don't know where to put, haha. And I've been using the desk for crafts.

bedroom.

our closet.

upstairs bathroom

why, hello :)

guest bedroom. so come stay with us!

fly tying and sewing room.

family room.

our new couch. so nice and so comfy!

downstairs bathroom.

laundry room. it even has its own microwave so we can pop corn while watching movies.

So there you have it. Our humble abode. What do you think?

I'll put up outside pictures tomorrow (I don't have the camera with me now to upload the pictures to the computer)

Finally! Our home!

Nate and I finally got the key to our new home yesterday. We have been so anxious with this process for the past 3 or 4 weeks, so we are seriously grateful to have it done.

We started packing our apartment up a couple of weeks ago, so we've been in a state of disarray since then, while not being able to use the things that were in the boxes and eating fast food and frozen pizza for the past few days.

But finally last night we were able to start taking some of these boxes over, and tonight with the help of some AWESOME family and friends we will take our heavier items over, with the help of a Uhaul truck.

We will be sleeping in our new place tonight, and I can't wait!

Our new home is still in Orem, and although its a little farther from the freeway and fast food, its even closer to work (at Heritage), and will shorten our drive from about 12 mins, to about 4 mins.

It is in a great area, where everyone seems to take great care of their homes and yards and we've even met a couple of the neighbors who seems super friendly.

We fondly nick named the home the yellow dellow.

The home is on the corner of a quiet culdesac in a quiet neighborhood.

It has a fenced back yard with a big tree in the yard for shade, and a huge storage shed.

we are going to build a fire pit using these big bricks

We will have a two car garage now, so we will no longer have to take turns with the misery of having the cold car in the winter, or scraping off the ice from the windshield. Plus the garage gives us even more storage space.

It has a doggy door from the kitchen to the garage and from the garage to outside, which seems perfectly designed for our pup. Now we just need to teach him to take himself out to tink.

The home has 4 bedrooms, 2 full bath, a family room, a living room, an office, and a laundry room. The home is about 2,100 square feet and we got an awesome price for it too.

kitchen

living room

one bedroom, will be the workout room for now

bedroom two, will be the office for now

master bedroom

upstairs bathroom

bedroom four, future guest bedroom

family room

downstairs bathroom

laundry room, and storage

 This home is perfect for us, and we are so excited to decorate it and make it our own!

so happy to own our first home!

our first meal in the home, frozen pizza and apple grape cider

Ps. A big shout out to my uncle Lance who was our real estate agent and helped us find and get the home.

Pps. A thank you to my parents for giving us a chunk of money so that we could make our house payments a little cheaper each month.

Ppps. I will post pictures once we have all our furniture in and things unpacked as well.

Camping - Distraction

Yesterday we decided we needed to distract ourselves (from the home wait - will post more on that soon). Nate only had to work for about 4 hours yesterday so he was able to come home early and pack up our car so that we could go camping. As soon as I got home from work, I grabbed some supplies from the bathroom and a change of clothes, and we were off.

We headed to our favorite camping spot in, Scofield. Thankfully there were hardly any people up there, so we were able to go to "our spot" but we were disappointed that the leaves seem to have fallen off all the Aspen trees early this year and there was even a little snow on the ground (I guess that explains the lack of people). We got there and it was already dark, but we decided to sleep in our ice fishing tent, and it is very easy to set up.

Although it was really cold, as long as we were by the fire we were fine. And the ice fishing tent, kept us, our air mattress and the pup nice and snug and we even had just enough room to put our heater in the tent. With the help of the cozy tent and our warm dual person sleeping bag we were comfortable to sleep all night, even with temperatures around 20 degrees.

The next morning we were able to warm up again by the fire. For our meals we had hot dogs cooked over the fire, with potstickers boiled in the dutch oven. We even had doughnuts warmed over the fire for dessert. For breakfast we had our usual breakfast burritos, we cooked ham and eggs in the dutch oven and heated the tortillas on the lid.

Shortly after breakfast we cleaned up and headed home, after shooting the air rifle at a few empty cans. All in all it was a successful trip.

Its now Monday and we're a few days closer to getting our home. And hopefully Halloween festivities today will distract us a little more.

We didn't get any pictures Friday because it was too dark. But here are a few from our Saturday morning escapades.

Nate cleaning up our tent.

Kisses. Look at Aspen exploring in the back.

Family photo.

 

Oops.

Self Timer. Quick the battery was dying.

Aspen was such a good boy and let me take a picture of him with Nate's hat on.

So he got rewarded with a doughnut.

Mama and Pup.

Fetching a tennis ball.

Peek a boo.

Ready to go home. Aspen looks ripped.