A Tale of Three Houses

This is my house in Arizona. A strange picture I know, because it only snows maybe if your really lucky like once a year. Which is why I took the picture in the first place. Alas this is my house, a house I love, a house I brought my infant son home to, a house made of dreams and of dreams come true. But now it is time to move on. We have been in Utah almost 9 months and this house is just that a house. No longer our home.
House #2


This is our house in Orem. Oh what a beautiful house it is, only remember we only lived in the basement. I loved driving down the private driveway and parking behind the garage. (The upstairs tenants got the garage along with an amazing professioal gas stove with double ovens and a pantry the size of a Master bedroom-it is Utah afterall). Although it was a basement, it was very nice. The cabinets were gorgeous, the granite was granite and the bathtub had jets. We also had a gas log fireplace that we turned on even in June (it was a rainy month and we are from Arizona). It also had this great fluffy carpet that felt so nice between my toes and never showed one ounce of dirt. Loved that carpet. Living with folks above us didn't turn out to be so fun though and alas we had to move on again.


House #3


Now, where we sleep is here. This house is not my dream home. I am not fond of the carpet in the dining room and master bath. Nor do I like the vinyl flooring in the kitchen. I have learned that big bedrooms are over rated and square footage is lost in stairs. But I do like having our own space, not sharing a home with strangers. I love that my family is reunited and we are living each day together. I love that we have grass and a lot of it and I love the view of the mountains:



It is beautiful! I recently found a sticker in a scrapbook store: "It's not the HOME I love, but it's the LIFE that's LIVED there."--Elise de Wolf. No this home doesn't have all the beautiful details I added to the house in Arizona, but it is HOME and I will treasure the life that we live here together.

Another week

So now that I've decided to blog again, I keep waiting for inspiration about something cute, funny or even amazing to share. And I guess I must keep waiting because it was just another week, just as usual, just as simple. Maybe for all of this I should be extra grateful. So I will post a picture of my darling daughter Tynli. She is 6 and three quarters and yes that three quarters is very important. She is good a math, and loves to create things. She is a sweet big sister, a helpful daughter and a loving pet owner. She's a good friend as long as you do what she says. (not really, well at least not all the time). She is not perfect, but I am blessed to be her mother, and for this I am truly grateful.

New Year's Resolutions

Okay, so it's been a while. Not sure if anyone even noticed. But I used to enjoy blogging, so I thought I would add it to my list of New Year's Resolutions. Maybe a funny thing on that list of typicals: Lose weight, be a better mom and wife, organize, etc. Blogging is a way for me to document our lives, which become our memories. So I guess even if no one else reads, we still have here to enjoy.

10 Years and going strong!

Brian and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last weekend with a trip to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. My sister was so generous to keep my children for 4 days. Living far away from family for so long Brian and I never get to do this, so it was so great! We didn't do anything extravagant, but just enjoyed being able to spend time together. I loved Yellowstone. It was so beautiful and we enjoyed animal spotting. Yet when I got home I realized I didn't shoot one picture of any animals-oh well. We also got upgraded to a condo, don't know how or why, but it was fabulous. Besides the green granite in the kitchen it was as if I had designed and decorated it myself. It was so rustic and warm. Anyway I love you B and am so happy to spend my life with you!

Living in Utah

I guess it's been a while again. I'd really like to blog at least once a week and just haven't got to it. Adjusting to a new place can be hard on one's spirit. There are some things about UT that I love and then there are things that are just strange-or different and then there are things that I hate.
When I first got here I loved all the tulips! They were just blooming everywhere and so beautiful. I vowed that once I have my own house I will definately be planting tulip bulbs. I also love the mountains, they are so amazing and gorgeous and I use to think the Hualapais were sufficient and know now that I was just tricking myself.
There are things that just catch my eye or strike me as strange or maybe just different than where I've lived before. This is not intended to offend anyone so please just look at my thoughts as another perspective. The first thing I noticed was a whole other section in Wal-Mart. It took me a minute to put it all together but it's for food storage. There was even a man giving samples of milk, I thought it was an odd place until he showed me that it was powdered milk. Oh, I guess I thought you only used it in baking, I didn't know you actually drink it. (And maybe now you just think I'm dumb). Even more so Food Storage is a huge topic of conversation here. Yes I know I am in UT, but I bet every person I've met has brought it up in one way or another-well excluding the folks at my gym. Most interesting to me was the infomercial on freeze dried foods that will last up to 100 years and you never have to rotate your food storage. I guess if you're like me and not a Mormon you might feel as if some of this is all a foreign language too.
Another observation, no coffee shops. Sometimes a girl just really needs a good cup of jo-I finally found a Starbucks in Barnes and Noble. Yeah. I went with a friend to a Women's Conference at BYU. Did you know there is no caffeine on the entire campus? I would have paid $5 for Pepsi that day! Ha! Ha! Know that I am not critizing in anyway, just observing.
I remember when I first moved to AZ all the changes, the rock yards, the snowmen next to cactus at Christmas, or even the "snowman" made out of tumble weeds. I had to write them all down before they became my "norm". So I know that eventually "Food Storage" infomercials and mall being closed on Sunday will all be normal too.
Finally for the "I Hates". I hate that no one is concerened with time. If they say it starts at 6:30 it could be 6:45 or 7:00. The bus is supposed to come at Noon, sometimes it doesn't show up until 12:40. But then you get into traffic and everyone is in the biggest hurry to get where? I'm not sure because it doesn't matter if you're on time. And the biggest thing I hate is so many kids without carseats or booster seats or even wearing a seatbelt. Now I know I am making judgements about this, but it's safety and kids don't know better. Come on people!

Spring = Snow?

Things really weren't going my way. We had this crazy snow storm and one of the rooms in our basement apartment had flooded. The worst part about it is that it's the room that I was storing all of the boxes in. On top of that I had come down with a crummy cold and wasn't feeling well. I had to hustle though and get all my boxes moved or unpacked to avoid the water. So if that wasn't enough I wake up the next morning with a tree branch on top of my car. I didn't really want to cry so I just shrugged my shoulders and was grateful it didn't break the sunroof. At first all I could vision was melted snow flooding the inside of my car. So here's a few pictures of my "welcome" to Utah.

Easter

Easter is probably my favorite holiday. I just love knowing that Christ died so that I could be saved, so that I can have eternal life. What could be a better celebration than the resurection of our Lord? But honestly Easter was a little more challenging to me this year. I didn't really have a plan past unpacking, we hadn't even been here a week. I wasn't really into the other "stuff" either. But for my kids I went out and got dye and dropped 3 dozen eggs in Wal-Mart. Funny thing is that morning I had commented to B about how nice people are in Utah. Everyone is just really kind and considerate. Then I dropped 3 dozen eggs in line at Wal-Mart. I asked for paper towels and cleaned it all up, still my checker despised me. It was such a bummer, but I guess there's always an exception. So we went back the next day and got new eggs and had fun coloring them. We also went to the Orem City Easter Egg Hunt. Someone forgot to mention to me that you wear Winter Parkas to Easter Egg Hunts here. I know I grew up in Wyoming, but I've been raising children in Arizona for over 5 years. I have a few lessons to learn. Both Tynli and I froze because we were wearing sandals, it was 42 degrees and it was pouring rain. Not so much fun! Easter Sunday wasn't much warmer, but it was a great day to attend our new church. It is St. Francis of Assisi and so far we like it. Hope everyone else had a fantastic Easter too!