Extreme Yard Makeover

Get ready folks, cuz this is nothing short of miraculous.  You'll see what I mean.  So we bought a short sale home last winter.  We've been working on little projects throughout the home (in and out) ever since.  Those of you that saw our last yard know that we're sort of outdoor people.  We love having a nice yard and enjoying it. 

But this yard was crap.

We think it was a combination of the builder putting in trees, etc. that were way too big for the space (this was an old model home), having lots of slope and very little usability in the first place, and being left unoccupied for over a year.  Here was the result:

 This was the side of the house where we will have to bring our lawn mower around.  Um, what?

 Immediately off the porch.  See the teeny rose bushes to the left?  That was AFTER we hacked them to the ground.

 This is why we hacked them to the ground.  These awful thorns would get in our shoes, the cat, etc. and get tracked inside where one of us would step on it and scream.  No fun.

 This was our yard.  It's awful right?  Not a place I could send my kids to play.  Or put up the kiddie pool.  Or anything.  I guess we could have rolled down it screaming "AS YOU WISH" if we all got kevlar bodysuits to protect us from the 4 ft high thistles.  Darn it.  Why didn't I think of this before?

 So we called a few guys back in July.  They brought the bobcat out and took away half the property I had just paid for.  I was not sad.

 He was also kind enough to add an unexpected water feature.  It's amazing how much water comes out of sprinkler lines.  Fortunately, it belonged to the HOA, not us, so we didn't have to foot the bill on that.

 Then they started building our own little mini "Great Wall."  We opted out of the battlements and such, but I think it's more usable for what we have planned.

 Aaron had the great idea to build some terraces and a retaining wall right next to the house so that the yard was flat but didn't have a drop off at the end off the yard.  I added curves to the overall design and we had a winner!

 Here it is once the wall was complete and the grading was basically done, making the yard a good 3-4 feet lower than it previously was!

 View from the other side, which is basically the view from the first photo.

 In August we added curbing to give some further definition.  We also had sod put in and the planters all filled with dirt.

 Then Aaron found a killer deal on trees.  Big trees.  Big enough that they had to put them in the hole by crane!  Do you see that white arm on the truck?  It's totally holding up our massive 18ft tree here.

 After much drama with our concrete (who says they'll be there the next day and just doesn't show up?) we finally got it poured like an hour before Sydney' birthday party started!  YAY!!!!!

 A week later we had Cleopatra mow the ridiculously long grass that resulted from paying $530,823,287 to water your new sod 3 times every day.

 This is the new walkway where we'll bring the lawnmower back and where the girls have races.  Woah.  I feel like I can breathe over here!

 A small little patio with a firepit (not pictured) immediately off the stairs (the horrible rose bushes were to the left here).  The slightly higher wall to the right in the picture is a sitting height wall and doubles as patio seating!

 Bring out the kiddie pool!  Do you see the nice flat, no slope lawn!  Ahhhh.  Also, see my standing height raised garden to the left?  Yesssss.

 I wish wish wish I had taken a before shot like this with all the insanity.  It probably wouldn't have done it justice, but it was really bad.  Not we have tall trees (who've lost their leaves for fall, but will grow big and beautiful shade leaves in the spring!), flat green grass, and TONS of gardening space!  Happy happy day!  Come on over!  We've got tons of room now!

So back on August 14, 2012, Sydney started preschool!  This is a more organized preschool than last year's co-op (which was so good and which I would totally do again).  Sydney is decent academically speaking, but not ready for Kindergarten socially.  She's a little shy and she's a kid that likes to watch and figure out what's happening before she jumps in.  We decided we weren't comfortable sending her to kindergarten as a 4 year old, even though she made the cutoff for school this year, so we are waiting one year and doing a more hard core preschool this year.  Here they are on the "safety line" when I went to pick her up the first day.

 There's my girl with a big smile!  She was delighted!

 Then on the 31st we went to the temple to have a picnic with some friends.  It was wonderful being on the temple grounds and we've made a goal to do it more often.  The last time my kids were at the Denver Temple was almost a year and a half ago and they STILL talk about it.  Clearly, it was past time to go back.

 The kids wanted to eat, but we knew peanut butter would get all over their dresses, so I made them take pictures first.  Thus all the folded arms and unhappy faces.

 Best photo of Mady in the bunch.  Seriously.

 This was post peanut butter lunch, but we just turned them around so the stains could not be seen. 

 I told the kids we were going to dress up a little to show Jesus how much we love and respect him and the temple, because when we go to the temple we try to wear our best for Jesus.  Since we were not going in, I was thinking they'd wear some play skirts or something casual just to get the principle of dressing up across.  The came down in the sparkliest outfits they could find, so I figured the principle had been adequately addressed and left it at that.

Here are all of the girls behind the temple in the Bride's Pavilion.  It's so beautiful and peaceful back there and we loved experiencing it.  We're so lucky to have a temple so close that we can visit!

Vacation Time

Back in July we headed out to Idaho for a family vacation.  First up we hit the Rexburg Independance Day parade (the best!)

Next we hit the fireworks with my fam.  Here's my brother Ryan (in his annual appearance on this blog) and my newest nephew Kendrik.  He has 2 boys and we have 2 girls, so we balance each other out nicely.

The girls were thrilled, although Mady was pretty nervous about the noise before it started.  They did great though, so hooray!

Next we stopped by the Rexburg Temple, where we had Sydney sealed to us 4 years ago. It was so beautiful and we loved spending a little time on the grounds, even if it was brief!

 Here's our little family now!  We've gotten a little bigger!

 Then we headed up to Yellowstone National Park.  I took the girls last year and Aaron had been jealous of our little day trip ever since, so we headed up to revisit.  Shortly after entering, some buffalo greeted us.  Some things never change.

 Then we stopped to soak our feet in the Firehole River.  This is where Mady fell in last time, but we didn't have any unanticipated swims this year!

 Stopped by the pools and the boiling mud.

 This year we camped with most of my family a little outside Yellowstone.  The girls were DELIGHTED to hang out with their cousins!  Kayden and the girls were inseparable!  They wore the little super hero "capes" all weekend!

Here they were off having a secret club meeting or something.  So cute!

 Here we all are!  My grandma and her new husband even came up from Las Vegas!  It was so fun to see everyone!

 Then it was back down to my parents house to hang out with another sister who couldn't come camping.  Her little girl couldn't stay out of the water to save her life!  Silly Chloe!

 We did some family photos while we were out there and got this one of us girls (my 2 sisters and I just in case you didn't catch the family resemblance.) 

 My little sis and I also showed up in matching Old Navy tees, so we had to get a pic of that too!  Growing up we always looked like twins and still often get mistaken for each other, so I thought it was very fitting that we dressed alike on accident!

We had so much fun seeing all of our family!  Aaron's family members are apparently allergic to cameras, because I realized I have no photos of them (but they live in the same place my fam does and we saw them too!)  I'll get a hypoallergenic camera next time and take some! 

Summer Days

We had a blast all summer doing lots of fun summer-y things!  First up, a kiddie pool/slip n' slide extravaganza in the tiny-almost dead front yard at our new house.   

 We had to soak up some sun!

 When my parents came to visit we went to The Butterfly Pavillion.  Mady even held a butterfly, which is HUGE for her since she has issues touching bugs.  She's been working on this all summer and will willingly hold roly poly bugs in her bare hands now!

 Sydney has had no such compunctions and LOVES holding butterflies!

 Sydney finished up ballet and is now thrilled to be in gymnastics with Madelyn.

 We also took Nana & Grampy to the new Asian Tropics exhibit at the zoo.

 It was super fun and the girls were thrilled to be there and see all the fun animals!  The tapirs were not on exhibit because one of them had escaped the previous day into the back!

 We also hit up the aquarium, and the girls got to have a picture taken with the mermaids!  They were so excited and the Mady informed the mermaids that her mom was going to make her a mermaid tail.  She's so so so excited!

 We only go to the aquarium once a year or so and the last time we went Sydney was way too scared to touch the stingrays.  She spent the next year talking about "the next time we go to the aquarium..."  This time she touched them and was so thrilled we could barely drag her out of there!

 I took some photos of the girls outside when our evil spikey rose bush was in full bloom.

I sure love these cuties! 

 The girls took swim lessons this year from a friend of ours.  Sydney went from having zero confidence in the water to being able to do somersaults and basically swim!  She did amazing!

We tried to spend lots of time at the pool and the girls were delighted to go play with Daddy!

 On our way to the ward campout Mady got sick.  We turned around, but Sydney was so disappointed that we went home and set up our tent for her.  She and Daddy got to spend some fun time playing games and such and then she slept in the tent (in the loft) so she could have a camping experience.

 I was the Girl's Camp Director in our ward and we had SO much fun! 

Here's a video of me zip lining at camp.  Almost everyone zipped and it was so much fun!  we also went canoeing, had dress up days, and went hiking.  We had a blast!