Saturday, June 23, 2012

Coming out of hiding

I feel like I say this at the beginning of every blog I do, but I am the world's worst blogger! I always think of things I want to blog about, but I never do. So... I'll just do a big blog about out happenings over the last few months. Sadly I don't really have pictures. (I want to go outside and take some so you can see but its WAY too hot and smokey outside right now - more on that in this post)

Back in April, we decided to finally tear out our ugly planter box that was in our back yard. We've hated that thing ever since we moved in because it was right in the middle of the yard and always full of weeds. I can't grow anything and make it stay alive so I never cared enough about it to want to pull the weeds so I could use it. The project turned into a lot bigger job than we were expecting it to be. (doesn't it always happen that way?)  We rented a bobcat to help tear it out and help level the ground so we could put sod in. We also were adding a few feet of grass to create a straight line in between the fence lines on both sides of our house. It was at a diagonal before so we figured we would just make our yard bigger in the process! Most of our siblings and a few neighbors and friends came to help us, which was so gracious of them! After everything was all leveled we put the sod in and it looks so much better! Its crazy how much bigger our yard looks just by taking that out and adding grass!

Another one of the projects we did this spring was add red lava rock to our flower beds outside. A few years ago we bought some red wood chips to put around the house, but seriously within a day most of them had blown away. It was pretty sad! I loved the look of the red so we chose to go with something a little bit heavier and added the lava rock, which, in my opinion, looks amazing! I think it was a really good choice and actually was a lot cheaper than the wood chips.

Our home improvement projects seem never-ending these days, but we're looking onto bigger and better things. And by "things", I mean homes! Yes, Thad and I are going to be selling our current home next spring and getting into one a little bit bigger. We've loved this home but with the market the way it is, we feel we could sell the home we are in and get something bigger and a little nicer for not much more than we are paying now. We haven't decided if we will build or buy used, but we have been brainstorming for months what we want in our new home and are excited to start the process. We've been working hard to get all our debt paid off any by September we should have everything except my car and our house paid off so we can start saving for our down-payment. Its a really good feeling to be getting out of credit card debt and hopefully we can stay on track even after we buy our new house.

Probably the most exciting (that sounds like a horrible word to use in this context but I can't think of a better one) news as of late is this fire burning out here in Saratoga Springs/Eagle Mountain. One of the reasons we wanted to move out to this area is that we love to shoot guns and the open range is only about 10 minutes down the road. Well, since it's been so hot and dry the last few months, so several fires have been started on Lake Mountain, which is about 5 miles from where our house is. The one that started this last Thursday is over 5,000 acres now and thousands have been evacuated from their homes! We are far enough away that we are safe but we know several people that have been evacuated. The pictures online are amazing to look at but makes me scared at the same time because there is another mountain behind my house that is just as dry and could catch fire just as easily. If you haven't seen the pictures, take a look *here*. Yesterday was really smokey outside and was really had to see because of all the smoke in the air, but today seems to look a lot better. Hopefully the winds stay calm today so those that have been evacuated can return to their homes.

And last but certainly not least, tomorrow Thad and I will celebrate our 6th anniversary! It has gone by so fast - I wish it would slow down! I'm still so in love with him and still get butterflies when I'm around him! I couldn't imagine my life with anyone else. We don't have any plans really. Maybe dinner and a movie since we are trying to save our money. I'm just looking forward to being able to spend time together since all of our weekends as of late are spent doing projects on the house. I love you, Thad!

That's all folks! Hopefully there will be another blog post before our 7th anniversary!