Friends

The Elders came over to help with ranch service.  It sure is nice to have extra hands and build friendships.  We are still recovering from logging last fall so we are piling up branches so Jeff can eventually mow again.  While working the Elders found a lizard.  He was their new friend.  Elder Badger was so excited.  Elder Russell decided he had made a new friend for life.  He hung out on Elder Russell for quite a while too.  So fun! 

Burning

Living on the ranch means no normal trash service.  We could pay for it, but why do that when you can burn your trash?  We have a lot of normal paper trash and we have a ton of boxes.  Let's just say we could be burning our trash for a long time before we catch up to the pile we have.  It was fun to feed the fire, but it can still get out of control quickly.  I'm sure we will have many more burn nights in our future!

Settling In

We have been making progress with the house.  The bathroom cabinets are now ready to be set.  I have also been getting out our old wall photos/decorations.  It's feeling like home having it all get decorated!  We are still a long way from being done, but we are moving in the right direction!

Moving Day

We are moved!  Well, mostly anyway.  We had friends come help us load up and move all of our stuff.  We kept Jeff's office in tact and our mattresses for our last night at the rental.  The Smith's, Cabrera's and Missionaries all came out to help.  We had plenty of trailer space and did it all in one move.  It was great to get everything into our new house.  Jeff was going to spend Friday working while the kids and I cleaned the house for our walk through with our landlord.  Then we would finish packing everything up and drive away.  

Friday came and Jeff worked about half the day.  Clark helped him pack up his office while I cleaned and cleaned.  Mhari had to be to work by noon so she cleaned all morning.  Lorna was a great helper.  The kids focused on their rooms, baseboards, and bathroom while I tackled the cabinets, floors, and anything/everything else.  It was a long day of cleaning and packing, but the house looked great when we were done.  We gave Matt the keys and did a walk through.  All done!  Good-bye rental!

 

Prepped

We did another load of moving over to the house.  This time we took over some furniture for the bedrooms.  We are staged for the beds.  We moved over box springs, bed frames, and rugs.  It's exciting to see the rooms looking like rooms.  We moved the kitchen table and have the kitchen looking like we will eat there :).   We also got the closets ready with rods so we can hang up our clothes.  We are so close now!  

The a/c guys came to get the system all set and put in our registers.  They were kind of confused with the house and asked several times if we were really moving in.  I mentioned we had lived through worse and that it was better than camping.  Getting out of our rental to save money is really the top of the reason list.  Evidently we only do things that push us to do the work... so of course we are moving into a house that's not quite ready yet ;). 

 

Pre-Move Fun

Someone asked to see a picture of the house recently and so I had to take one.  We still have cabinet boxes on the porch and junk piles out front, but such is our life these days.  

Also, our friends the Cabrera's came over with their trailer and helped us move our extra fridge and freezers over to the house.  Moving has begun... slowly :).  We have to be out of the rental by the 28th so we are on serious count down mode now!

 

Doors

Installing doors is tricky business.  Trying to square them up has been a bit of a struggle.  It seems simple, but it's not.  Once the door seems good it will be too tight, or not square or something.  After some thinking the front door needed the base to be tightened up.  I did that and worked on the back door too.  They are finally opening and closing well.