The End of Summer

After the family reunion there wasn't much summer left - we closed on our house in Utah before the reunion and then had new carpet and some tile installed before we moved in.  I had to drive from my parents house in Lehi to Kaysville (north of Salt Lake), where the house is, too many times since we weren't living in the house just yet.  It's only about a 45 minute drive but it was starting to get old.  I drove up with all the kids once morning to meet the fridge delivery guy and the tile installers.  While we were waiting for the tile guy Emma went out in the backyard, climbed up on the play structure, saw a bee, freaked out about the bee, and fell while trying to come down off the structure.  She toppled head over heels down the wooden steps.  Poor Emma.  Being afraid of bees is proving to be more dangerous than actual bees. We've later discovered there are quite a few yellow jackets and or wasps living near that structure.  We're working on that.  Our backyard is an insect wonderland apparently.

There are lots of little house repairs and cleaning jobs to keep us busy.  

Here are the kids waiting for the fridge delivery and tile people to come.

This is before new carpet.

Here is Emma a few days post injury.

She's going to make it but I really wish we could get her more comfortable with flying insects.

Here is Anna picking a few peaches from my parents tree.  We couldn't keep up!

Here is the tile being installed in our new house.  I had to swing by to pick the grout color.  They did a nice job on the tile install but I was a little disappointed with my tile choice.  I had another tile in mind but it wasn't available and we ended up last minute going with this darker color.  I shouldn't allow myself to be rushed into decisions like that I guess. Oh well.  The tile looks fine, but doesn't match the cabinets that well.  It looks better in low light.  :)

We got Matthew a new hair cut for school.

We picked out a new couch.  When Scott and I got married we each brought a couch to the marriage. Mine was a smaller slipcover couch from Ikea and Scott brought a brown sofa and matching love seat.  Those couches have moved all over with us over the past 13 years.  And we finally decided to retire the brown couch and love seat.  They had a lot of kid mess/stains on them and were showing lots of wear.  So we left them behind in California.  I think we let one of the movers take them.  The Ikea couch lives on, although it got a new broken arm during this latest move but the movers never included it in their inventory in California so not sure we can claim it.  In any case, our growing kids need a bigger couch.  So we picked out a sectional this time.  Now maybe we can all fit on the couch for movie night.  Here's Scott trying it out.

We spent a fun afternoon at Provo Beach for our niece and nephew's birthday celebrations.  Matthew tries out the ropes course here.

Singing Happy Birthday!!

Owen had a donut cake.  Might have to do that for Grant one year.  He loves donuts!!

Getting carousel pictures is always tricky.

Instead of mini golf they had mini croquet.  The kids had a lot of fun although we didn't learn much about the actual rules of croquet.

We got to see our niece, Olivia, get baptized.  She and Anna are only two years apart and love hanging out together.  I'm glad we got to be there for her baptism.

The finished tile work in the bathroom.  It looks better in this picture than in real life.  I mean, the tile looks great.  It just clashes a little with the orange-ish cabinets.  And I have only myself to blame.

Scott's dad helped us tame our backyard.  Here he's collecting peaches from our tree.  That's the garden to the left.  It looked a lot different a month ago when we made the offer on this house.  Wow, how those weeds have grown.  Lots more taming to do.

I think this is when I got bit by a horsefly or some other worse-than-a-mosquito flying insect.  The work to do on the house feels a little or a lot overwhelming.  Maybe I just have post-new-house-itis since our last new house was brand new and clean and perfect when we moved in.  The little things to fix aren't really that bad, but I just didn't notice them when we bought house.  I wish I had looked a little more closely so I could have asked the sellers to fix some of the things.

The kids try out the master bath tub for the first time.

I was feeling a little bit of house buyers remorse those first few days - and again it is all my own fault since I picked this house - but when we are all there together it feels a little more like our home.  Hopefully we will be able to tame it all.