There's No Place Like Home

Jake and I used to go to the Parade of Homes every year. Usually it is just a blur of gigantic houses and there isn't anything too memorable, but in 2006 we went to one that I refer to as "The Dream House." It was the only craftsman home in the parade that year, and it was beautiful. I loved the clean lines, white cabinets, dark floor, and everything else about. I could have stayed there all day. When we decided to build a house, I wanted to do as much as I could to replicate this house, but on a much smaller scale (the only thing I didn't love about it was the $2-$3 million price tag.) I am so happy with the result. We are finally done, one month ahead of schedule and significantly under budget. I loved the process of building a house and choosing everything. We feel like we have the perfect home for our family. Here a few pictures that we snapped before we moved in, because it certainly doesn't look this clean now. The master bathroom. The fireplace. We gave the finish carpenter a picture of what we wanted and he built it in a day. He was amazing, and I love the result. I can't wait to hang stockings on it for Christmas. The kitchen. This is definitely my dream kitchen. I have wanted white kitchen cabinets for a long time, and in all our looking for houses, we never saw one that had them. Jake and I did the tile on the backsplash. It looks great if you don't look too close. The staircase. The entryway. The front door is one of my favorite parts of the house. It looks even better from the outside, but you'll have to come visit us to see it. Posting pictures of the front of my house just doesn't seem very safe.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

We had been planning on moving into our new house Memorial Day weekend for a few weeks now. It was the perfect time to move because Jake would have an extra day off work to get settled in. The house was almost done and everything was on track, but then the rain started. It seems like it rained a few days every week, which prevented us from being about to pour our driveway. We held out hope that the weather would let up and we would be able to finish it, and then it snowed - at the end of May. Mother Nature was not on board with our moving plans. So, instead of sitting around all weekend feeling bad that we couldn't move in to our new house (which, by the way, was completely finished) we decided to go on a little family trip. We headed to St. George and had a great time. Here are few highlights. The temple in St. George is beautiful against all the red rock. We spent a day in Zion National Park. It was perfect weather. The boys were great sports going on a very bumpy stroller ride. The highlight of the trip for Carson was the Rosenbach Museum, which is like Cabella's only you have to pay. He loved seeing all of the animals, and it was a little better than the zoo because you can actually see the animals and they don't look miserable. His favorite thing to watch lately is the Lion King, so he was excited to see the lions there. Caleb loved all the good food we got to eat. He is a bottomless pit lately, and he had fun eating at different restaurants. He also loved swimming at the hotel, which I don't have any pictures of because two babies in a swimming pool plus two parents equals not enough hands to take a picture. My favorite part was spending time with my boys (all three of them) without any other distractions. I was a little nervous about how they would do on such a long car ride, but they were unbelievably good (all three of them!). I guess I am happy we didn't move this weekend, because we had a great trip that we wouldn't have otherwise taken.