Our New House

Let us take you on a tour

First...The street view
That's pretty huh...Okay, next we'll walk inside. The first door toward the bottom left is the front door- the next one is the garage door. Don't worry, we'll see the garage later. For now, you get to view our lovely living room!

...and another view

Alright. One of the things we like about this place is the open floor plan. From the living room you can easily interact with people in the dining room and kitchen. We also love the nice "partial wall" which will serve well to keep the mess in the kitchen (let's be honest here) hidden from view.

Next, you can see a little close up of the dining room. The sliding glass door goes out to our deck.

...but we'll see the deck a little later. For now, we'll turn around and look at the kitchen! And a beautiful kitchen it is. All of these appliances are new within the past year-an-a-half, as is the beautiful wood floor. What you aren't seeing is the new dishwasher by the sink and tons of cupboard space under the bar.

We had to put this next picture in because about 6 months ago Rachel and I went on a date to Sears (I know- we're real exciting people). While we were there we sort of window shopped for our "dream home appliances." Well, this double oven/flat-top stove/microwave was Rachel's number one pick. I guess it was just meant to be.

This next one is our pantry. That is where we'll keep our food.

So, now we'll take a look downstairs. (There are two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs too. You'll see them later.)

This is our beautiful, HUGE family room. Here is one side of it....

...and here is the other. The sliding glass doors go to the back yard.

Oh- We also have an electric fireplace/heater thing.

This next thing is kind-of a cool/unique feature of this home. This is the closet under the stairs. It is a normal closet, but then there is this little door (where Evelyn is walking through).

This place was obviously meant for more storage- but it wouldn't take much to make an awesome "secret hide out." The little nook to Evelyn's right will be built-in book shelves.

Okay, now we'll show you the bedrooms...at least one of them. They all look pretty much the same. There's four in all- two upstairs and two downstars.

And next you will see a bathroom. The other one is pretty much an exact replica.

So that's the house. Now we'll move on to my favorite part- the outside! First, we'll go back upstairs and out the sliding glass doors (remember the ones in the dining room).

...and we find ourselves standing on our deck.

The deck has a beautiful view. I could sit out here every night and watch the sun go down over these mountains (which are a lot closer for some reason in real life). The nice thing is that we live on a hill, so this view isn't going anywhere.

Anyway, if we turn around on the deck, we can also look down and see the backyard. The structure on the left is my man-cave. We'll see that later too.

We have a lot of plans for this back yard. If you go down the deck and turn around then you can see the back of the house...

Along with the covered patio and fire pit.

The gravel area is the driveway for my man cave. We hope to build a little play house/fort underneath the deck. Also, if you'll remember, the sliding doors that you can see lead into the family room. There is also a little built-in tool shed behind the BBQ (you can see the door if you look closely).

This view shows the back of "The Cave" and will one day be a lush, green garden, complete with the white picket fence to keep out the kids. This area actually gets sun nearly all day long despite the large wall right next to it.

Okay- now we'll look at MY playground.

So, obviously the current owners are using it for some storage before they move out. Just know that there are great plans in the making.

...Another view, this time looking out toward the front.

And this lovely little area will be perfect for my at-home climbing wall (I already have the holds for it too). I am so excited.

I know that most of you are probably getting tired of looking at unfinished wood. Well, I am the one writing this blog, so I get to show what's important to me (if Rachel was doing it then I'm sure you would get a much more intimate view of our kitchen). Anyway, this is our garage. It's big- there's lots of storage- and I like it.

Well, that about wraps up the tour. We brought the kids to see the place today and they love it. Evelyn said her favorite part is the backyard. Also, I had to put this picture up so that I could point out Rachel's posture- it looks like she's been taking lessons from Grandpa!

Okay...It's been an awesome week. Like, really awesome. The coolest part? We bought a house! Yep, you read that right. We are now "home owners."

But that's all I'm going to say about it for now.

I know, it's a little bit mean of me to throw that out there with no follow-up- sort of like laughing at an inside joke without letting other people in on it. But it is what it is. Come back in a few days and I'll have pictures up and everything. For now, however, I want to focus on the rest of the week. It really was a great week and I don't want it to be overshadowed by the whole "house thing".

So, now that I've taken care of that...

On Wednesday I think we found Evelyn's new favorite place. It is a great park in Spokane and it has a CAROUSEL! For those of you who haven't heard yet, Evelyn loves carousels. She was introduced to them at my parent's home in Rexburg and since that time the whole idea has become an obsession to her.

On Friday I had a very active day. If you read the blog last week then you know I am "training" (in a non-commital sort of way) for an ironman race. Really, I think I like the idea of doing an ironman more than the actual thing. Anyway, I woke up and decided to push myself a little bit. I ran 7 miles, ended at the river, and immediately did a 1 mile swim. The run was fine. I am a good runner. The problem, however, is that I think I almost drowned. Well, not really, but anyone who was watching me flail around in the water probably would have thought that. Obviously I have some work to do.

Later that day we went to the beach again with the whole family. It was a different beach that we havn't been to yet and it worked out great for everyone. I was a little self-concious at first, because it was "park day," a social thing for the moms in our ward to get out of the house with their little kids. Rachel convinced me to go and I ended up being the only adult male on the entire beach. It was actually a lot of fun once I got over the fact that I was the only person without a shirt on (don't get me wrong- that is a good thing), and I got to play with the kids a bunch while Rachel socialized with her little group.

That night, for dinner, we went to another cool park that we just sort of stumbled upon while driving around one day. It was seriously one of the coolest play structures I have seen. I can best discribe it as "McDonald's playland on steroids." The kids liked it.

Saturday was pretty much consumed by "house stuff." Again, come back later this week and I'll write more about that.

Sunday was my birthday! I am 29 years old. That's old. For my birthday Rachel helped the kids put together a surprise party for me. Evelyn planned out the games and picked out all the party favors. And even though I'm not really "into" Tinkerbell and jewelry, I had a lot of fun. Evelyn in a great planner and executer. She totally took charge of the party and directed the whole thing.

I am a very happy daddy tonight :)

Tinkerbell cupcakes, party hats, and candy jewelry. Evelyn was very excited about this party that she planned and it was totally contageous. We had a great time!

Evelyn and Jackson totally bonded at the park. They ran around and played with each other for a long time. I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see my kids interacting like this. Also, it means that Rachel and I got to just sit on the grass and talk!

Addy was more interested in the food than the play. She sat alone at the picnic table and finished eating all of the Cheetos and hot-dogs that were left over after our BBQ.

Oh- I forgot to write about this. We went to the "Pie Festival" on Saturday. It was like a farmer's market, and they sold pies (among other things), and we got some good pastries and cookies.

Here's just a short video that we took at the park.

We had beautiful weather all week this week, and the forecast is showing even better next week! The highs are around the upper 80's (although one day we did get into the mid-nineties) and the sunshine is plentiful.

So what did we do? We went camping, of course! Actually, it has been a while since we camped because we have been intimidated by the prospect of 3 kids (but mostly just Jackson) in the wild outdoors with no retaining walls for an extended period of time. You put that boy outside and he just goes crazy! Don't get me wrong, I think it is a very good thing. I am very proud of his adventurous little spirit, but it makes it difficult to watch the other two when our attention is constantly being drawn away by the one.

Anyway, we finally did get out. We went into the National Forest and just sort of drove around the un-paved forest-service roads until we found a spot with a fire ring that looked nice. By the time we got there it was already getting late, but up here the sun doesn't go down until about eleven so we had plenty of time to pitch the tent and explore the area and eat dinner and roast marshmallows before bedtime. It was a lot of fun.

That night, on the other hand, was not so much fun.

I think this is the worst night they have ever had. Ever. Evelyn did great. She slept with Rachel and me in a separate tent. Addy and Jack, on the other hand, were not happy campers. From the time we put them to bed until the time we woke them up there was only an hour-and-a-half that they were both sleeping. The rest of the time at least one of them was screaming- and I do mean SCREAMING- so that it was impossible to get any sleep. In the morning they were cranky and touchy and grumpy. We had breakfast which calmed them down a little bit, but then we left for home not too much later so that they could get some much-needed sleep.

But it was worth it. We will definitely go camping a lot and hope that they just get used to it. I think that maybe they were just scared by the unfamiliar surroundings. That will change and things will get better. I hope. Because Rachel and I love camping, and we're not going to stop, but if things don't get better then we might all end up needing to be institutionalized.

All right

I also have an announcement to make. Are you ready? I am considering doing something that is crazy, and that some would argue passes the line into stupidity.

Every year up here there is a big Ironman contest. You know, one of those triathlon things. It consists of a 2.5 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike ride, and ended by a 26.2 mile run. It sounds horrible. Actually, it sounds like self-imposed torture. Why would anyone willingly subject themselves to that. These are the kinds of things that POWs come home from and write books about (okay, that's probably going a bit too far), but the concept is not too far off in my mind. I would ruthlessly mock all those who would even consider that such a thing might be worth doing, but the problem is that there is this small part of me that is drawn- sort of like a moth is drawn to a bug-zapper.

I think the analogy is accurate in more ways in one, but still, if I don't do it then there will always be this question in the back of my mind about whether or not I even could. And I guess that is the allure. This is one of those things you do so that you can prove to yourself that you can. Also, although I hate endurance sports, I always somehow find joy in the pain that is associated with them. It's weird, but I do, and apparently so do a lot of other people (the fact of which is the only piece of convincing evidence that I am not some sort of psychopathic masochist).

Anyway, I have decided that this is a goal I want to pursue. It would be at least a year away, so I have time to train and to learn how to really swim as opposed to just staying afloat (something I am very good at). The prospect intimidates me, and I am still not 100% convinced that I want to give it a go, but I figured that if I posted it up here then it would take me that much farther into the commitment. Also, if I don't end up doing it then I can look back and read this when I get old and feel deep twinges of regret of a missed opportunity.

So...That's that.

Oh- One more exciting thing happened this week also. We got our first ultrasound. We are happy (so very happy) to announce that we are having ONE healthy baby.

We don't know anything else about it yet other than that it is about the size of an avocado pit.

Okay, the rest of these pictures are in reverse-chronological order, so it would be best to scroll down to the very bottom and then work your way up. I am way too tired of this blog right now to care enough to change it.

On the way home- can you tell that nobody got any sleep?

Breakfast.

Yeah- they were tired.

Addy-our girly girl. I didn't bring the brush. Rachel didn't bring the brush. But somehow we found Addy brushing her hair first thing in the morning.

Good morning!

Time to wake up.

The best part of camping for Evelyn was that we allowed her to eat as many roasted marshmallows as she wanted. Yes, we are bribing our children to enjoy the same activities that we do.

Dinner time! Come get it while it is hot!

Our cute little Addy girl...before she went to bed.

Here's a video of Evelyn after we had already put AddyJack down for bed.