Our New Home

Now that we've been here for exactly one month, here are some pictures of our new home. We're at the end of our row of townhouses, which is nice. We never hear our neighbors. The neighborhood is pretty quiet. There are a few kids, but we don't see them very often. Behind our house is a huge open field of grass. When we first moved here it was a huge field of clover, but then they started mowing it every week, so all we see is a small patch of clover here and there. Brent was really bummed when they mowed it. He loved the clover. I'm kinda happy it's gone because there were tons of bees out there. On Monday night I realized there are fireflies out there. It was the first time I had ever seen them. I felt like a kid, mesmerized by all the flashing lights. It was so fun.

The house is 3 stories. The bottom level has the door to the garage, a storage closet under the stairs, and then a big room with the laundry room and another storage closet attached. Originally we were going to use the big room as a play room, but we changed our minds and made it the living room instead. It has worked out really nice. My biggest problem about having the playroom down there was that it feels so far away and both doors to the outside are down there, which made me uncomfortable. So, we changed the typical living room on the second floor into the playroom and the formal dining room into the office. It's all a little atypical, but it works nicely. The playroom is very well used. It is covered in toys daily, usually with trains. Derek is obsessed! We decided it was finally time to get a new dining room table, since we actually have somewhere to put it. It's so nice to have a table that fits all of us and the food, with plenty of room for more people. I LOVE the kitchen. It is so nice to have counter space and cupboards!! There are even cupboards that hardly have anything in them. It's great. It's nice having the pot rack as well. The owner left that here for us. The third floor has the bedrooms. The boys have their own rooms. It has worked out well. The master bedroom is spacious with a wonderfully large bathroom with separate shower and bath. I also LOVE having more than one bathroom again with counters, cupboards, and drawers. We love our house. It's so nice to have space again.

The owner, a guy in his mid-twenties or so, left several things for us that makes it even nicer. He left the bookshelves in the playroom, as well as some decorative shelves in the playroom and entryway, shelves in the storage room and garage, and an extra freezer in the garage. He also left handsoap and toilet paper in the bathrooms, which was really handy when we first got here without our stuff, plus a broom and mop, which I didn't think I'd use at first, but it's nice to have a broom upstairs. Plus, there's a security system included. I love all the colors of the walls in the house. The paint makes it even more homey. The only downside is that the owner had a dog, so we still find dog hair all the time, on all the floors. Oh well. It'll disappear eventually I hope.

We can get almost anywhere in 15 minutes or less. Brent works 10 minutes away. Target and grocery stores are also about 10 minutes. It takes 12 minutes to get to church. The mall is maybe 15. The furthest thing is Sam's Club, which is still less than 20. It's taken some getting used to figuring out where things are. I still sometimes get confused as to where I am when I go different places. Our ward is really spread out. It's nice being in a "normal" ward again. There are 40-50 kids in primary, less than 10 in nursery. The youth program is pretty small, which is unfortunate for babysitters. There are a lot of young families as well as a lot of older people. We were surprised to find that our ward is fairly transient. There are a lot of families here doing medical residencies, so they are just here for 3 years or so. We have met a lot of wonderful people.

Brent started work last week. He didn't have much to do last week, but he's started in on some projects this week, even though he doesn't know what he's doing yet. He'll figure it out with some time. The company is great, he really likes all the people he has met so far. This Friday they are having a BBQ for everyone in the Career Development Program. On Tuesday we get to go to an Iron Pigs game (the local Minor League baseball team), with box seats and everything. That will be fun. Plus, he found out about a group picnic sometime later in the summer - for the specific group he's working in. So far so good. It's nice for Brent to be working again. The boys and I are still trying to figure out how to spend our days, but we're getting there.