Visitors

What better way to christen a new house than to have visitors?? Last week my mom and dad made a special trip to come up and bring us some needed furniture. Thanks to them we now have a twin bed (that means you can come visit and you'll have a place to sleep!) and a kitchen table and chairs (the same one I grew up with)! They brought a tag-along with them named Paris. Miles was over the moon happy that his cousin came to play! He still asks where Paris is in the mornings. Here they are having a water fight, playing with play-dough, and staying up late and watching a movie together.

The crew was only here for a short time, but while they were here they not only set us up with furniture, but also helped us fix our toilet, gave me an art lesson, also played with play-dough and ate some yummy food.

Just a day after they left, we welcomed my niece Taysom! Her semester was ending and she was flying back home out of SLC, so we got to have her with us for a few days. It was just like good old times back in the burg. Once again, Miles was super happy that someone was willing to humor him and play the "fight the monsters downstairs" game.

On Monday 3 more visitors dropped by! Natalie, Jo and Ozzy. Nat and Jo only stayed a few hours, but Ozzy decided he liked it so much that he's going to stick around. :) Remember when I said Richie was desperate for a dog? Well, it just so happens that My brother and sister-in-law are moving and have to get rid of their long time family dog. They were looking for a good home, and we were looking for a good dog. Perfect match! The kids are in love with him and Richie, the old softy, is convincing me to keep him inside, not outside like we talked about. However, this morning I was glad he was an indoor dog. We were finishing playing downstairs and the kids beat me upstairs. Suddenly I hear some strange noise and Miles shouting "Scary bird!!". (Miles has a fear of birds, FYI) I figured their was a bird bumping into the front window. When I got to the top of the stairs, I was shocked to see Ozzy standing over a newly dead bird on the living room carpet! YIKES! My guess is that the bird came through the chimney, ended up in the living room and Ozzy, the fearless dog, killed it right there and saved Miles from the nightmare of a bird trapped in the house. We gave him a standing ovation and lots of loves.

Richie had Pioneer day off so we put the time to good use and finished some house projects. One of which was a fire pit! We LOVE hanging out outside and roasting mallows, so we used the materials we had on hand and whipped one up. Not perfect or fancy, but works just great. To mix some fun into the day, we took the kids and the rest of the Garner crew to the splash pad and then back to our house to make some smores. Our little neighbor friend hopped over the fence and joined us, and we had a party on our hands!

To finish off a wonderful day, I washed our picnic blanket in our beautiful washing machine and then let it hang dry on our new clothes line. Perfection.

Settling in

We moved in on a Friday night. I'm grateful the kids (and ourselves) seemed to adjust well and there were no major melt downs about wanting to go back to Grandma's house or back to our old house. We were trying our best to keep things "normal" despite the mess of boxes everywhere, so we had our usual waffles on Saturday.

Then after cleaning and getting ready, we found the nearest splash park. Let me tell you, the parks here in Riverton have nothing on the parks in Rexburg. But it was nice to get out and do something non-house related and focus on our family. As we were running around, I couldn't help but notice (for the one-millionth time) the huge mountains right in front of me, and I thought, "This is our home now." and let out a contented sigh. I sure love living next to these beautiful mountains.

Miles still refers to this house as our "new house", but both the kids have adjusted seamlessly into these new surroundings. Maybe it's all the extra room, or an actual yard to play in. :) Most of our things are in the semi-right place by now and we're catching up on the list of necessary home improvements. Within 48 hours of moving in, our old fridge finally bit the dust, as did our hand-me-down washing machine. We quickly found a new fridge on ksl, and then my parents bestowed the most beautiful washer and dryer I have ever seen upon us. They've easily taken the lead of the nicest things we own, and we've both been caught just standing there watching the cycles go. We've also replaced the broken garbage disposal, fixed a toilet, fixed our van AGAIN (this time it was minor, thank goodness), bought a clothes line and installed it, fertilized and re-seeded the lawn, brought in some hand-me-down sod to put in some problem areas, brought in mulch to build up the flower beds, planted a pear tree, got our internet installed, and made plans to re-shingle our roof. Busy little bees, yes? All those other fun things that we want to fix up will just have to wait. I've already started hoarding the extra cash in a jar in my closet.

Today we went to a park and Miles spotted some boys his age horsing around. He forgot all formalities and just ran straight into the group and nearly tackled a kid from behind, all in fun mind you. Miles thought it was the perfect way to get in on the action, but the other kid sure didn't. I tried to help him smooth things over, but the kids wouldn't play with him after that. Miles tried tagging along, but they would tell him to stop following and run away. Did you hear that? Yeah, it was my heart breaking. They weren't being malicious, just 4 year olds, but still. Maybe it hurt me so much because I felt kind of the same way. All these other mom's were in groups, chatting away. I felt like I wasn't invited to the popular table. I spent my time erasing now unnecessary Rexburg numbers from my phone and chasing the kids. I think Miles and I are both desperate for friends. There are 2 girls that share our backyard fence line and every time he sees them, he runs out shouting, "FRIENDS! HEY!!" Luckily, they're pretty nice to him. I have to keep reminding myself that it takes time, right? Good thing we have a good time with each other.:) We made play-dough for the first time the other day since our other play-dough some how went moldy over the course of the move. Yuck.

27 & 4

Monday July 2nd, 2012, was a momentous day. Richie turned 27 years old. For his birthday, we bought a house. :) He got off work early and came with me to sign papers at a fancy office building. The kind of office building where they offer you bottled water and snacks as you wait for your appointment. Like I said, fancy. I can't believe how many times we signed our names and how much paper work is involved! When we finished, they gave us a bottle of sparkling cider to celebrate the milestone. Despite how fun it all was, we couldn't help but being nervous. It doesn't show, does it?

After dinner, his folks surprised him with some yard necessities and we had rhubarb crisp. YUM! I then told him we'd have to drive to Herriman to go pick up my gift to him. The only things he's been wanting for a while are A. a nice camera, B. a nice ukulele, or C. a dog. I think his hopes were high that we were actually going to buy a dog from someone, and when the nice man rolled his used lawnmower out, I could just see the disappointment on his face. Lame wife has to go and be all practical...again. Maybe one day we'll buy something really fun and unnecessary.

Richie then drove me around the area to familiarize myself with our streets and we ended up at OUR home. We had signed the papers, it was officially ours. We took a few pictures to commemorate the day. I think we already look like tired home owners in this picture, don't you?

A few days later we celebrated the 4th of July. All of his brothers had the day off work, so they decided to come work at our house, naturally of course. They trimmed trees back, cleaned out gutters, got the sprinklers working, washed walls, washed blinds, and on and on. What troopers!

Later that night we tried the kids out on their first fireworks. True to Miles, he was not a fan of the sparklers at first, but played it safe with some pop-its. True to Gwen, she jumped right at the whole sparkler thing and loved it until she grabbed a hot one. After some TLC from her uncles, she was ready to go at it again. Miles eventually warmed up to the sparkler idea, although very cautiously. After the kids went to bed, we watched some big fireworks from a distance and enjoyed some popsicles.

A good week for the Garner family indeed.

Oh yes, we did

Just in case you're interested, I added some pictures to the last post. Now that we finally have the internet and I found our camera, I can do cool things like that.

Well you've probably already figured this out, but we're here in Utah now! The movers came and packed us up, and we spent all night finishing the cleaning check-list like good little renters. We cleaned all those things you would probably never clean in your own house like the window tracks and sweeping behind the fridge. Richie actually did most of the cleaning. What a guy eh? Can you find his feet in all that mess? He's scrubbing behind the fridge.

The next day, we had arranged for the kids to go to a friends house so that we could direct the movers, but after we dropped them off and came to help, there was absolutely nothing for us to do. It was crazy! We'd never had a moving experience like this before. We actually went to the park and played frisbee while 2 guys with mustaches and beer bellies moved our belongings into the truck. A little while later the check-out lady came to make sure we did our duty. We cleaned extra hard so that we'd get our deposit back. I'll spare you all the obnoxious details, but needless to say she was one of the most unpleasant people I'd ever met. She gave our place a glance and told me we wouldn't be getting any of our deposit back and that our apartment was so dirty, they'd have to have professionals come for at least 8 hours. I gave her the keys and told her to leave and started crying. I'd done fairly well holding back the tears as I said goodbye to friends, but that was the last straw. When Richie came back with the kids later and asked what happened, I explained. He shared a few choice words with "the check-out lady" that he wishes he didn't and we hit the road. It was so much more difficult to rip myself from our little apartment than I expected.

Richie drove the van with the kids and I had the Corolla all to myself. Grateful for the alone time, I cried. I thought about how fitting it was that 6 years ago, I drove that Corolla stuffed to the top with all of my college necessities, to the foreign land of Rexburg. I was so sad to leave home, I cried the entire 45 minutes to Cedar City until I could control myself. I listened to The Format almost the entire way up. 6 years, 1 college degree, 1 husband, and 2 kids later I'm driving the same car, packed to the top, crying, to a different foreign land called Riverton.

While we finalized things for the house, we stayed with Richie's folks for about a week. We were so grateful we didn't have to juggle 2 kids in a hotel for a week and eat out every meal. What a blessing! While we were there, we were able to attend the temple with everyone when Jacob went through for the first time. It was a tender experience and we were grateful to share in it.