Good-Bye House

We are leaving our beloved dream home that we built. We bought the lot and started building but by the time it was finished the market was on the way down. It is not really a surprise that we are leaving from the way the market turned but it is still hard to leave. Preston did so much and worked so hard to get every little detail right. My help was minimal compared to how much time and effort he spent on this beautiful house. We moved in thinking that we would sell it fairly quickly but that unfortunately didn't happen. It was sure fun living in my dream house even if it was only for a year. So this is farewell dream home and I will always love you! Here are some things that I will sure miss... and a few that I won't (I have to point out some bad points so it doesn't hurt so bad leaving!)

I really will miss the windows and all of the natural light we had in our house.

I will not miss this sight in the morning at 5:00 though! It was so bright in our room that we couldn't see our digital clock so we didn't know if it was really 5 or 7 am, they both look the same... BRIGHT. We did learn to sleep through it though, but we can't wait for a room with binds and curtains again!

I will miss having a huge porch! So pretty!

A three car garage. I'll never have one of these again.

My OWN closet!

My beautiful frosted doors, and my bigger-than-a-library pantry!

Yes, I will sure miss you!

I will miss my fantastic kitchen! I will definitely miss my gas stove, and double convection oven.

My pretty cabinets, I had too many of them... I know I will never say that again in my life!

And my dark green granite and tile back splash.

I will NOT miss the spiders! I know I could have cleaned the cobwebs off of the porch once in a while but it wouldn't have helped much there are a TON! Plus it was kind of like a natural bird feeder on the back porch. Birds would always be flying in to pick out some grub from our webby "bird feeders!" I know that I only have pictures of the Daddy Longlegs, but we had all kinds of spiders... BIG ones! Wolf spiders, black widows, probably some tarantulas too!

I will miss all of the pretty molding and all of the wood throughout the house...

I will NOT miss however, seeing every spec of dust, and every footprint. And of course I will not miss CLEANING 5000 square feet of floor!

I will miss our big gas fireplace, in the winter that is!

I know it's not needed but I will miss the roominess of the rooms.

I will miss the very soft, designer carpet. Yes, you can tell a difference! I will miss this BIG room it was a great playroom with lots of room to RUN! Oh and it was great for girls game nights!

But if you notice there are no lights in the kids bedrooms! I will completely NOT miss that! I am looking forward to being able to turn on the light to read books before bed!

Ladies you are going to want a urinal in your dream home! I know that I personally never used it... that would be awkward and messy, but I loved having it! Why? Because I knew that there were no splatters or drips to clean off or around the toilet!

I will miss our shower. Yet again I will say, I will not miss cleaning it.

Rain shower I will miss you!

We so loved our extremely quiet fans, you couldn't hear them at all!

I will not miss this sight. This is the view from the kitchen sink, right around dinner time! The sun would blare through the kitchen window right in my face! Not so fun!

My pretty bathroom accessory, the claw foot tub.

Good thing I get to keep the cute kids inside of it though!

Good-bye house! I will miss you, but I will not miss cleaning you!

Look What I Did!

So my good friend Lindsee is having twins, a girl and a boy. So this is what I made her for her shower. Not to brag but aren't these SO cute!

B-Day and Fourth

I love that those two days go together every year! My Birthday and the Fourth! My Birthday was an extremely good day! Preston is the best husband ever he knows how to make me feel special. He made me french toast for breakfast. We took it easy Preston gave me so many gifts, one of which was a message chair so I sat on that for a while and relaxed. We went out to lunch with my parents, to Aloha Kitchen! MMMM! I out ate everyone and I still think Preston was more full than I was! I really can eat A LOT most of the time! We came home and relaxed a little bit more and then we had a party! Both mine and Preston's family came and we had lots of fun. I had previously made a list of things I eventually wanted in my lifetime and it seems like I got every single one on the list in one day! I will always be keeping a list from now on! Then Preston had everyone go around and tell what they were doing when the were 24, mine was the easiest, I didn't have to think back! There was lots of treats and ice cream and cake. Then in the middle of the party Preston decided that we should go to a movie. It was convenient that we had babysitters to choose from right there in our house. So we were able to see Transformers which was kind of a spontaneous surprise! I love Birthday's; you hear from lots of people and it makes you feel so special!

Then it was the Fourth! We almost always go to my Grandma and Grandpa's house to swim, eat, and then watch fireworks. We even had the kiddie pools up and the slip-n-slides out for the little ones.

I love how Kael's plumbing it in this one, how come it's cute on little kids but big people not so much!

Their house is the best for the fourth, there is a great view of the Country Clubs fireworks right on their front lawn!

Baden was inside the whole show sleeping, at least he was holding his glow stick!

It was sure fun, another great year!

Oh and of course we did our toes!

The Rest

I know I have been really detailed on our trip, but it is something that I really want to have well documented. So if you are sick of reading about our trip, too bad, it's my blog! And I need to get caught up so that I don't feel like there is a major project every time I sit at the computer. So here is the rest of our trip.

We spent the night in Liberty and then the next day we drove to Independence Missouri. It was only about a half hour drive and I'm glad we did it. We all knew that there wasn't a ton to see there but it was worth it. We went to the lot that Joseph declared the spot of the temple that will be built in the later days. It was interesting to me to hear of the stories of things in this area. I'm so glad that I have a testimony of the The Church of Later-Day Saints and that it makes sense, the Temple Lot church and the Community of Christ churches have a lot of things that didn't make sense at all. And I don't understand how their members are okay with some of those things. And it was strange that they both use the Book of Mormon, and they have apostles and prophets but they don't have the Spirit. We even met one of their apostles.

Here we are at the temple lot.

This is the Community of Christ's temple. It was really quite comical to be that when we were in front of their temple I kind of have the feeling of "That's a strange building." And on the other hand when we were in front of the Nauvoo LDS Temple I got the feeling of "Wow that is so beautiful, amazing, and sering." Not at all the feeling with this upside down tornado looking thing. We went inside and then was really thinking it was weird when I saw pictures of women giving blessings, and crosses inside... STRANGE!

We went to a small deli and ate lunch, Baden evidently had frog legs. Isn't he so cute!

The next day we went to see where Jace works.

Jace took us to see the museum of Sam Walton. Wal-Mart isn't just a store out in Bentonville it's a culture. It was neat to see how Sam Walton started out, and what a humble and nice man he was.

The next day we went to their zoo, it's a bit different than what we have in Phoenix but it was sure fun! They had a lot of places where you could get right up close to the animals, this pig started walking toward Kya, she didn't like that much. I don't blame her if a huge thing that looked like this was about as tall as me I would run too!

She liked things a lot better behind a fence.

The goats kept eating our shorts.

The baby baboons that were really cute. Kya kept saying, "Look that monkey has a diaper on!" She thought that was pretty funny.

The 12 week old baboon tried to sit on Kya's lap... she didn't like that much. Like I said before she likes animals behind a fence.

The baby lion.

Then after we saw all the animals there was a part of the zoo that you stay in your car, that is the way to go... no walking with the AC on! It was like a safari and the animals would walk right up to your car.

Preston fed the bird, I was telling him, "We see this all the time on America's Funniest Videos and they NEVER turn out good!" But he did it anyway and I guess it wasn't too bad!

Then we came home and went swimming. The hose water was REALLY cold and Kya's swimsuit made her too cold I guess. She is a little funny about having her clothes wet so she swam naked!

Then we had a BBQ with the Gosney's. Jace and Karis's friends that live right around the corner.

The next day was Father's Day, Sunday. We got to got to Jace and Karis's new ward building that morning and then of course we did Father's Day gifts!

Roberta, and Jace both went in on a gift for us and surprised us with it! It's the same statue on Joseph and Hyrum that is at Carthage. Where we got Baden Hyrum from.

Then we went to the Gosney's for a BBQ. We ate some GOOD grub!

Then it was Monday time for good-byes! Cole was so sad to see "K-YA" go! We love you guys hope everything goes well with the twins!

Baden was surprisingly happy in the car by the end of our long trip!

We had such a good time seeing Jace, Karis and Cole. Then to be able to have spent time with Roberta and see Bert and Garna too, was just great! What a great experiance!