Summer

Coming to Utah after our vacation reminded us how lucky we were to be moving closer to family.  Instead of having to take Elsa cross-country with us, she flew to Utah with my mom and sister's family where Steven's sister Krystal took charge of her for the next three days.  That was quite an undertaking as Elsa was just beginning a weird eye infection and decided that no one else could touch her except for Krystal.  Krystal also met the movers at our house and supervised the unloading of our things.  My mom cleaned the house when she arrived and helped unpack so that when we got there we were not spending time searching for essentials.  Suffice it to say that this was the easiest move we have ever made thanks to our family and having movers take care of all the heavy lifting/packing.

As you can tell, Elsa missed out on a very entertaining car ride.

Lots of family bonding!  My favorite part of the trip was when we were so bored, we started to compose songs.  "Everybody Recognizes Caaaarnnnn (Corn)" is sure to be an instant hit if we can ever find those lyrics we wrote down.

Three days later, we hit Utah.  We saw our rental house for the first time in person and fell in love.  Sidewalks!  A backyard that doesn't look like a jungle!  Huge trees that provide shade and climbing possibilities!  Enough room to grow.  We're in love.

 I have a love/hate relationship with the sandbox.  I don't know if we'll put one in where we eventually move due to the mess factor.  The kids love it though.

Caroline striking a pose for me.  I LOVE the mountain views here!

While Mom was with us over the summer, we hit the nail salon and got spoiled.  Grandma is teaching gel nail classes to her students at school so she's been going often to learn the tricks of the trade.  Nadia got her first mani/pedi.

Of course she picked the most red sparkly nail polish she could find.  The girl loves red!

Grandma had the garage saling itch while she was here and I was only more than happy to oblige and try it out.  I had heard horror stories about Utah garage sales and was pretty skeptical that we would find anything beyond clothes that 7 kids had worn and gone through.  Thankfully, the rumors were wrong.  Garage sales in Utah are just as awesome as Illinois and definitely better than South Carolina.  You just have to know where to go and be willing to go a ways out of Provo.  Mom and I went every weekend and found no shortage of treasures.  I can't wait for next summer!

Mom's car on the first day we went.  We shopped till we could fit no more.

I think these are some of my favorite finds over the summer.  The statues are from the late 1800s and used to flank a clock.  The whole yard sale was of a gentleman who was selling off his collection of antique clocks.  The clock we ended up getting reminds me of one my mom had growing up.  We got them for a steal!

I got this Thomasville patio set for $50 and ended up reselling it for a handsome profit, which I used to buy the patio set that I really wanted.  This one was pretty, but not comfortable enough.  I resold quite a few things over the summer.

This was another "clock man" yard sale find.  For $10, we bought him and "dressed" him up as decor for Steve's office.  Some other favorites are my $10 iRobot Roomba and some fancy barstools I got for $10 that retail for $500 each.  I'm happy to live in the materialists' waste stream.


Over the summer we had fun introducing the kids to the places we had been to as college students.  We took them up to Squaw Peak, which Steve somehow missed while he was here.  I will note here that I only went to the peak with friends and we went during the day.  :)  Rowan was quite vocal about not liking the drive up and the drive down.  It's not for the faint of heart.

The view was just as stunning as it ever was.

After some gentle prodding from me and some hard work in the evenings, Steve obliged me by putting the playground up in the backyard.  I'm so glad we brought this playset, although it's getting to be on its last legs.  We probably won't take it with us to our next home, but it has provided so much fun for our kids and their friends.  Best free thing I ever got off Craigslist.

Our backyard has a nice slope to it that has made for the perfect slip and slide setup.  We never really were able to get our kids to use this on a flat surface, but they wore it to shreds this summer.  It has been a great summer activity.

It helps to have cousins over to play with too.


When they got bored with that, they made a waterslide with the hose and the playground.

The house has an awesome deck too.  This might be the first time where we will feel like we are downgrading with our next move.  So far we've only moved up in the world, but this yard has been such a gem, I don't know if we'll be able to match it.

Elsa wasn't much into the water balloon fight.  Many thanks to Nathan who patiently filled these up.  They provided great entertainment for 5 minutes.


This whole get together was over Pioneer Day.  We watched fireworks over Utah Lake off the deck in the evening.  It was a great day!

Nadia made her first foray into the world of sewing with Grandma around.  She made a tablecloth for her dollhouse and has been obsessed with sewing and fabric ever since.  She loves to tell me about all the things she will make herself when she "is eight years old."

Rowan and Elsa preferred singing on the chair.


I was so grateful that Nadia got lots of playdates with cousins after immediately moving here.  I think it really helped her to not retreat into her shell and she has been doing wonderfully since, but I'll update on that later.  Here she is with Viktoria.

This is at Rock Canyon Park which is a block away from our house.  I think I was almost in tears when we took the kids out for a walk the first time.  I have missed just walking out the door with the kids to a park SO much.  It's so nice to not feel trapped in the house and to get the kids working on learning to ride bikes etc.

Pretty sure I have the most adorable kids ever!

The kids and I made some strawberry jam to last us the year.  I haven't gotten into canning other things, but I'm sure we will experiment more next summer.

More family get togethers...

Elsa is our clean up crew.  She scrounges around after the kids are done and eats their leftovers.  I would stop her, but I'm too happy when she consumes something that doesn't come in a bottle.

 That includes root beer bottles.

This summer was not without projects beyond unpacking boxes and getting settled.  We sold our last couch before our move and I was on the hunt for a replacement.  Unfortunately the replacements I wanted were $1500+ and we were trying to save our deniro for a minivan.  So I bought this couch on a whim at a yard sale because the price was right, but it needed some work as the cushions were all losing their dye.  I ended up dying them, which was quite a process to get the color right.

I ended up putting too much dye on the cushions and will eventually have to redo them, but I learned a lot in the process.

After...

Our ward has been very welcoming.  There is a lot of young families entering into the ward replacing older couples who are eventually going into assisted care centers or with family.  It seems the area is experiencing quite the turnover right now.  We've gone to a few ward activities and I've joined a book club that I really love that encompasses a few wards in the area.  This is a picture of us at a ward member's house watching Cars 2 on their projector. 

We love living so close to BYU and the mountains.  We hope to buy in the area in the next few years, but we'll see.  For now we are content and happy to let others take care of repairs and yard maintenance. 

Replacing Curtis Orchard

A fall requirement back when we lived in Illinois was to visit a family orchard that sidelined as a family friendly outing where there were hayrides, apple cider, fresh donuts, pumpkin picking and so much more.  We went to a place that was similar in South Carolina once, but it was far away from our house and due to the economy it was about to close.  I get the itch to go to similar venues whenever fall rolls around.  Here in Utah we discovered Hee Haws in Pleasant Grove.  What they lacked in freshly made donuts, they made up for in incredibly large rabbits.

Elsa loved the big "hop hops" and was pleased at how docile/lazy they were.  They were clearly resigned to their fate of being mauled by every toddler that crossed their path.

They had plenty of activities and animals to entertain us.  Elsa was clearly very happy to be out of the house.

Hay tunnels

Farm train

Tetherball (I'd forgotten how fun this game could be.  We used to have a tetherball that my mom put in at our old house in Devon.)

Pumpkins to rival the bunnies in size

I'm not sure if the sun was too bright or she decided she didn't like something.  Probably both.

One of their favorite activities was playing in the corn pit.

The goats were very interested in Nadia's shirt.

The favorite activity was the potato sack slide.  Or at least it was the most attended.

Sans potato sacks this time around.

Forgive the camera shutters on this video- they have been acting funny.



Afterwards we did the corn maze.  It was impressive to have the mountains in the background.  Illinois has better corn, but you can't beat this scenery.

We did it!

 

Waiting for the tractor to come take us back.

Bottle Addict?

 Sorry attempt at a family picture...

Afterwards we hit up the Purple Turtle for dinner.  I had only been once before back in my college days (I'm so old!), but it was pretty good food and we'd be happy to go again some time.

 All in all it was a fun success and we hope to be back next year!