We bought a house!

So, we moved into our first house on July 7th. We had some great helpers my Aunt Becky and Uncle Larry, Justin's mom Cecilia, his sisters, Jinni and Jyana, and Jyana's husband Ben came and helped. We were so grateful for their love, support, and of course muscles. We couldn't have done it with out them. It didn't take us that long at all.

After we were done we had a nice lunch and visited. I was super tired since I worked the night before and had yet to sleep. But we got it all in and it works! So..here's a fun little video tour of our house. I probably should have done it before we moved in but it still works. I was trying forever to get the video to load and it was having problems so hopefully it works. Enjoy.

Cleaning up

So I really wasn't kidding when I said that I had to clean EVERYTHING before I could do anything to our house. At first it was really frustrating for me because I had spent that past month deep cleaning my apartment, then the lady who lived here said " oh yeah we are moving out soon so I can have time to clean." nice. Then at closing our Realtor said that they hired a professional cleaning company to clean. Sweet! I am thinking it should be amazing. Well we get the keys and come in and all I can see is dirt. Dirty walls, floors, windows. There is a big traffic spot in the living room which our rug covers perfectly. I got so discouraged and seriously thought....I don't want this house anymore. It seemed like everywhere we looked there was something else dirty.

Well I had to take some big deep breaths and tell myself it will be ok. One room at a time to clean and  eventually you will get it how you like. It just made unpacking anything delayed by a few days till I could feel as if it was clean enough. Now when we walked through it the first time it was clean. But now that I look back I think it was just clutter free...which creates the illusion that it's clean when it's not. I just remember deep cleaning my chore on Saturday mornings and we had to make sure the walls were done, windows, dust. Everything. So after a while of being really mad about it  I just started to laugh and take pictures. I still end up finding things and exclaiming. " Really?? Really??" Like...how could you leave this". Then I tell myself it was a short sale so be grateful that the house is in such great shape. Anyways....enough babbling...you guys want to see pictures I know!

These are all the "treasures" I found cleaning out the kitchen cupboards. The box is a bunch of business cards, a little vase, birthday candles, a glue stick, a bookmark, a card from a game. a peppermint, a cough drop, some lids to things. There is a lid to a children's tylenol that goes along with a mess of it in one of the cupboards. Fun stuff!

 These were the big "treasures" found underneath the fridge. I decided not to take a picture of all the dirt, dust, and stuck on gross. I made my sister clean that one. =) We got a paper, a piece of wood, a string of beads, pennies, crayon, chapstick...anyone want that? 

Yes folks....that is GUM! That was found in the "boy" room window sill. That was one where I got a little bit freaked out. Really? Gum ? You leave gum?! It did come off pretty good due to the alcohol pads I had in my nursing bag.

This gem is under the sink. I ...have no words. I don't know where to even begin on cleaning it. I think there syrup down there along with like tin can dirt. Under the sink stink. I have yet to clean it 30% because I don't know how...70% because I don't want to. hehe. 

Ugh this is in the vent of the "boy's room" It had a TON of stuff down there. Crayons, legos, food, dirt, a pen, wrappers. It wouldn't end! I got all the big stuff out into a grocery sack and then vacummed it up. The air came in a lot stronger after that...I wonder why. After this one I am a little bit afraid to clean out the others. 

Those are all the big ones. I have been doing some as I go and everything is starting to look better. At times while I am cleaning I feel like it's the Greek Monster Hydra. Everytime I clean I see ten more things that need it...more and more heads to conquer. But I do like it and it's slowly starting to feel like home. 

A trip down memory lane

After the Temple we had a TON of time to kill so we decided to go by our old house. We moved from Ephraim; to first Layton and then to Logan. It's been almost ten years since we moved. So we drove by to check out the house. 

We were a little sad that they painted it Trailer Park blue, before it was a tan all over with dark brown trim on the windows. This part cracks me up. We had a nice fence for the driveway, we saw that they took it off and made a makeshift fence. The nice fence was to the right where we had a big field to help them get to their horse. Ironically the horses were just chilling in the back yard. I don't get it.

Another view of the silly fence.

This was our across the street neighbors. Our only neighbors for a mile around. The original neighbors no longer live there anymore.

So this part was the park attached to the church that we'd go to. For the longest time it just had a two swings and a set of rings. Half the time the swings got wrapped around the bar on top so it was hard to swing. Now there is a jungle gym, better swings and a merry go round in the back. On the other side where our church "used" to be is now a pile of rubble. It's just nothing I don't know what the plans are. 

They also redid the Library! This is one place that we spent a lot of time. Both me and my sister worked there and we were good friends with the head librarian. They redid the outside and inside to make it more handicap accessible. It was so nice inside, it looked so new and exciting. It still had the squeaky part on the floor but it looked really nice. 

It was interesting to see what has changed and what hasn't. My sisters and I talked about what we remembered and everything seemed so much bigger before. It was also sad to see all the unkempt houses. There were houses that we thought for sure no one would live there but then found people there. It was hard to move, I was not happy about it then but now I can see that it was good to leave the small town. Small towns are great but you either get stuck there or leave.

The Mormon Miracle Pageant

So I have been slacking on blogging and that's ok it just means there is more to catch up on! Justin and I have been trying to make this summer more fun and do some of the activities we've been wanting to do. Well both me and my sister Suzanna really wanted to go to the Mormon Miracle Pageant down in Manti. So...we did. We went down and stayed a while with my brother in Lehi and then made the trek to Manti. 

We left pretty early in the day because we wanted to go to the temple and do some service work there. It's a special temple for our family since we lived in the town right before ( Ephraim) for about 10 years. I grew up always seeing the temple out by my house, I went by it everyday going to High School. It was always just there. 

It was really neat to be able to go through more of the temple then just the baptistry which is really cool but the other parts are cool as well. 

Bright during the day. It was a beautiful day when we were there. Hot...but really pretty.

I love when the temples are all light up at night. 

This is us waiting for forever for the pageant to start. I was kind of excited to see the Pageant because every summer after I was 12 I was in the Pageant and sometimes when the moment is right I quote it and Justin never knows what I am talking about. 

The Pageant goes through the Joseph Smith story very quickly with a few scenes from the Book of Mormon, then wraps up with the Saints traveling from Missouri to Salt Lake. It goes through all the history really fast. They have been doing it for I want to say 50 years, we got a newspaper about it but I don't remember hehe. So the lines are sometimes really cheesy and the performances are pretty good. It was a fun little trip down memory lane, remembering the cues for certain parts and spending the summer nights with friends on the temple hill. 

We had fun but would probably be ok not seeing again for another 10 years. That's how long it's been. 

Check one for our summer bucket list!