What?

So the last few weeks we have been rushing out the door to get to school on time. I know we should just wake up earlier but I just don't want to! This morning was no different, I rushed to the car with Blake in my arms and buckled him in. I heard Kayla get in and shut the door so off we went. I got to the first stop sign and checked right and left and right, wait a minute something is not right. Where is Elizabeth? I was in such a hurry I forgot Elizabeth. Ha ha I laughed all the way home and when I opened the garage there she was looking at me stunned that I would forget her. I think I am losing my mind.

Welcome Home Claaaaaark

UPDATED ON THE BOTTOM OF POST!!!!!

My youngest brother Clark returned home from serving a mission in South Korea yesterday and we were all very excited to see him! My mom couldn't even wait twenty seconds for him to pass the TSA check point and rushed to him. She got yelled at by the TSA agent but luckily she was not arrested or body searched for any terrorism weapons.

We met Jared at Bass Pro and drove together to the airport. The arrival board kept on posting the plane was going to be 15 minutes early and I was nervous we might miss his arrival but luckily we got there a few minutes before he did. Apparently when Blake saw Grandma run to Clark he thought he should also. Clark being gone for two years had no idea who that little kid was, took him a minute to figure it out.

I should do a blog post on everything Blake has broken this year, his most recent was are beloved camera! So of course we had to hurry and rush our next camera purchase since Jared was due to leave on his hunt the next day(next blog post to come if Jared ever gets to it). Well anyways long story short our new camera stinks! All of the pictures I took of Clark in the airport were blurry and unrecognizable so I made him take a few snap shots for me in front of my Grandma Harris's house. That's her in the background I guess she wanted to be in the picture too?.?

Well we are glad you are home and are all anxious to see what happens with your girlfriend/fiance? Danica. You know we have flower girl dresses already right? :) Update!!!! Clark popped the question the night I wrote this blog, they are now officially engaged and planning on a wedding in February. Congratulations guys. :)

Blake

Looking at these pictures I took today of Blake I can't believe at how old he looks. He is growing up so fast. Grandma Harris bought him this cute new outfit for church and I thought I would take his picture and post it up for her to see . He loves taking pictures, he always wants to see every picture I take right after the flash goes off. He was even saying "cheese" for me. :)




Jared has been in an electronic phase and has been programming a microchip to read the temperatures of the meats he is smoking in his smoker. Anyways long story short he has been looking into different robots for fun and has made Blake obsessed with robots. Jared bought him the yellow robot in the picture, so he would stop playing with the more expensive one he bought the other day.
Blake loves to play with it and will say in a robot voice, " I am a robot". The robot runs out of batteries fairly quickly since Blake never turns it off. Anyways to get Blake to try to use the toilet yesterday we kept bribing him with candy and he wouldn't even try, well Jared said, " I will put batteries in your robot if you go poo on the toilet." Blake quickly ran to his toilet and a few minutes later squeezed out a tiny poo. I know kinda gross but super exciting, I guess we know his weakness now. He even sat through all of Sacrament meeting today because he had his robot and when he was getting a little loud making his robot noises Jared helped him put Robot to "sleep" and they covered him with a book. My boys are just too cute. :)

Target trip

I just got home from a very successful Target shopping trip with just a few little hiccups. Target is pain to use coupons at but after a few calls to the managers the cashier was able to punch through ten of my coupons that weren't registering!
Anyways I got
10 glade candle tins
10 glade candle refills (Christmas presents for church people and teachers)
6 Wii games (Christmas presents for hubby and kids)
6 bags of Halloween candy ( I am putting it up high in my closet, hopefully it will last until next year).

Total was $53! I saved $134.77, plus for buying the Glade candles I got back $20 in Target Gift Cards!

I love coupons!

Pics for the Grandmas

This Halloween we kept it low key. Since I feel like I am always trying to save money with all of my coupon shopping I decided we weren't going to be buying costumes this year. Elizabeth went as hunter using things we already had.




Blake went as Bob the Builder. I had got the hat and tool belt online earlier this year when it was on clearance. I thought it was cuter than anything I saw at the store anyways. I don't know what is up with Blake and this funny smile but he does it a lot.

Kayla wanted to be a vampire nurse this year. Luckily Angie had this nurse outfit already and I never ended up getting the vampire teeth :( So she had to go just as a nurse.

On Halloween we always visit My Grandma Harris (Mimi) and My Grandpa Booth. This is a picture of my Grandma and my nephew Wesley (Rich and Liz new little man). Isn't he such a cute froggy?
After visiting my grandparents and my aunt Gail we headed home and sat outside and passed out candy with my Uncle Mike. We didn't do much trick or treating this year. We had the ward Trunk or Treat Friday night and all the non chocolate candy we got from there I handed out to the kids that came to our house. :) Yay no half eaten suckers on my carpet this year!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is coming

Halloween is coming!

A man is walking home alone late one foggy night...

When behind him he hears:

Bump...
BUMP....
BUMP...

Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog he makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street toward him.
BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...

Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him

FASTER...
FASTER...
FASTER...

BUMP...
BUMP...
BUMP...

He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him..
However, the casket crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping
Clappity-BUMP...
Clappity-BUMP....
Clappity-BUMP ...

On his heels, the terrified man runs.
Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in.
His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps.

With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door.
Bumping and clapping toward him.
The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is a bottle of cough syrup!
Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket...

And,





The coffin stops

Let me know if you want it

Well this week the Old Navy site did not do a $75 off $100. I did win a $25 off $100 coupon, not that great but if you would like it just leave a comment and I will email it to you. First to leave the comment gets it. I totally understand if no one wants it though. :)

My shopping trip 10/17

Alright ladies just got home from all of my shopping today. The kids have been off of school this week and I DID NOT want to take them shopping with me. I hit up 4 stores, Target, Walgreens, Safeway, and CVS.
Target
6 Ortega Taco Shells- .63 a piece
2 M&M- 1.50 a piece
4 Chef Michael Dog food bags- .26 a piece
= $8.84

Walgreens
1 Vitamin Lotion
1 Chapstick
2 cream chicken soup
= $1.37
spent $10RR and got back $10RR :)

Safeway
15 Macaroni cheese- .33 a piece
2 milk- 1.37 a piece
6 Dial Hand Soap- free
Febreze Noticable- free
2 Bacon-1.63 each
1 Deli Meat- 1.50
=$13.46

CVS
2 Kashi Cereal- free
2 Neosporin Lip Care- free
=.47 in tax

So I spent a total of $24.14. So awesome! Kayla is so excited that I bought Macaroni and Cheese that she is making it right now all by herself.

Old Navy, Anniversary, Birthday

Look what I WON! Every Thursday Old Navy updates their site and hides coupons ranging from 15% off an item to the mack daddy of them all $75 off your purchase of $100 or more! The $75 coupon is incredibly hard to get, once the site resets sometime on Thursday the $75 coupon is gone within 30 seconds so you have to be super fast and find it right away! I just got really really lucky. I probably screamed at the top of my lungs for 10 minutes because I was so excited. Jared came home right after I had won and thought I had won something better than $75 bucks by the way I was jumping up and down and screaming "I won"! Dang, if I ever won the lottery I would probably pass out. I tried yesterday and was too slow, I had a chance for the $50 off the $100 coupon but didn't find it in time. :(

So here is what we ended up buying at Old Navy this week.... Kayla got a dress, a pink shirt, and a pair of brown pants. Elizabeth got the plaid skirt and two undershirts. Blake got two shirts, two pairs of pants, and not pictured a tractor trailer toy. I only paid $26!!!



Last week was also our 11th Anniversary and Jared's 30th birthday. Jared and I left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa Dutton and drove to North Scottsdale to stay at the 5 star Fairmont Princess. Wow! It was truly beautiful and romantic, we have never stayed anywhere remotely as nice as this place. After our dinner fiasco last year for our anniversary and paying over $100 for 1 steak! we decided to go to Outback for dinner and get a good dinner for under $50 bucks, it was really yummy.
Jared's birthday was on Sunday and we celebrated with his family at his sister Angie's house. They made homemade chili and cornbread which was really good. We also played poor little black cat and fruit basket tip over. It was a really nice weekend and are so blessed to have family around that we can share our many experiences with.

Ferris Wheel!

This weekend the kids school had a carnival.... Since this is our first year at this school we were pretty excited about it, it sounded really awesome. The school was advertising how there was even going to be a Ferris Wheel! Wow, that is so cool..... So here is a video of Blake riding the Ferris Wheel all by himself! Wow, what a big boy!

A little bit of South

This picture is for my two sister in-laws who have brought a little "south" into our lives. He he he. :) j/k Liz.

Alright I really am not going to blog about every shopping trip but I had to tell about this one, it even surprised me! Now the trick to this deal was e-coupons (cellfire and shortcuts). These sites let you upload coupons to your shopping card. Apparently I had more e-coupons on my card than I remembered.


This deal was at Safeway and if you bought 4 of the participating products it would subtract $4 from your total (making everything before coupons $1.50). Plus when you bought 4 products you receive a free box a capri sun.

1 Cocoa Puffs - ecoupon cellfire .75, ecpn shortcuts .75 = free
1 Cin Toast Crunch- .55 cpn doubled to $1= .50
2 Trix- ecpn .55, 2 .55cpn doubled to $1= .45 for 2 boxes
4 Nut Clusters- ecpn $1, $1, .40, .40. then I had 3 $1 off cpns= .20 for 4 bags
2 Capri Suns= free with deal

Total= $1.15

I actually had a $1.60 printable coupon for the 4th bag of nut clusters but it wouldn't scan so I technically could have been owed .45 but they probably would have freaked out over that so maybe it was a good thing that coupon wasn't scanning and I can use it later. Or if I would have brought one more $1 off cpn for the nut clusters I would have only paid .15. I didn't think to bring an extra cpn because I had the $1.60 cpn. Oh well I am happy only paying $1.15.

My shopping trip 9/14

Since I started couponing a few months ago I have had a few people ask me to blog about all the great deals I am getting. So I thought I would start with my shopping trip today.

Today I headed out to Bashas and had 10, .50 off coupons for Barilla pasta, plus 2 coupons for .55 off Hillshire farm lunch meat. Since Bashas doubles coupons I was able to get all of the pasta for free (on sale for $1) and the lunch meat for $1.88 a piece.

5- whole wheat spaghetti
5- mini rigatoni
2- Hilshire Farm lunch meat

paid $ 3.74






This photo is for my trip to Walgreens. Walgreens has been my new Walmart lately... It is weird never to go there anymore. Walgreens has deals called Register Rewards (RR) that print out after you purchase an item that is on sale that week. You can use your RR on your next purchase, but not on what you just bought or a new RR will not print out! The goal is to buy things that "roll" (use your RR on items that offer RR) making alot of the things you buy really cheap. Today I did 6 transactions.

1. Bought bag Northern Crisps on sale for $3. Used a $2 RR from a previous day paid $1 oop (out of pocket) got back $3RR for next purchase.

2. Northern Crisps $3. Used $1 RR from a previous day paid $2 oop. got back 3 RR

3. Northern Crisps $3. Used $1.50 RR from a previous day paid $1.50 oop. got back 3 RR

4. 2 Triaminc cold strips 2/$10. Used $2 off coupon in Walgreens Healthy Savings book next to Register (since it is a Wags coupon it takes off $2 per item and you can keep the coupon). Then I used 2 of my $3 RR from the Northern Crisps. So $4 off from Wags cpn and $6 off from RR. Paid .81 oop (I technically got these for free but had to pay .81 in tax). Got back $5 RR

5. Northern Crisps $3 and Pringles 2.29 (thanks Blake, extra buys when you bring along kids :).
Used $5 RR from Triaminic. Paid .29 oop got back 3RR

6. Decided to do the Triaminic deal again. Used two $3 RR from the Northern Crisps and the $4 Walgreens coupon. Paid oop .81 got back $5 RR.

Few that was a long explanation. So I calculated all of my purchases from Walgreens and paid a total of $6.41 for
4- Norther Crisps (hope they are good)
4- Triaminic cold strips
1- Pringles can

Timber

I have the pictures in the wrong order so a few pics down is the picture of our hideous bottle tree that we had cut down this weekend. This tree makes a mess all year round and was not providing any shade for our home so we decided to get rid of it and plant something else. We do feel a little bad for cutting down such a mature tree but it is too late now.

These guys did a pretty good job and had the tree down within an hour, the clean up took a little longer though seemed like they were here for at least four hours. It was quite the show, I think every neighbor that was home came out to watch the tree fall.

So here is the before picture of our overgrown tree and here is a video of tree falling. Enjoy.

New AC Units

When we bought this house we knew one of the first things we would need to replace would be our 22 year old ac units. I got a few quotes and decided I would call one more place to compare prices, glad I did they quoted us 3k less than the other places. We had them installed the next week. Here are a few pics of the replacement.

I thought this picture was fun with our old "large" ac unit in between the two new units.

These are the two old units looking pretty sad getting ready to be hauled away.

Wahoo our new units in place. Thank goodness it was starting to get really hot in the house with out the AC on all day! We spent most of the afternoon in the pool. :) Now bring on lower utility bills.

strep throat

Last night after I posted about Kayla being sick she told me her throat hurt. I took a look and she had tons of white spots in the back of her throat. Poor kid. I took her to the Urgent Care this morning and the Doctor didn't even swab her throat, she took one look inside Kayla's mouth and said I will go write you a prescription. She is doing much better this evening after two doses of antibiotics. She will have to stay home from school tomorrow since she will not have been on antibiotics for more than 24 hours. I hope she is feeling well enough to go to K-Mart tomorrow they are doubling coupons up to 4 bucks! It is hard enough not being able to go on Sunday I will be upset if I can't go tomorrow too. I know I am way obsessed with my new hobby, Elizabeth was glad to go back to school so she didn't have to go to the store all the time. :)

Backyard campout

We had told Elizabeth she could sleep out in the backyard this summer and we never got around to it. So with the first week of school behind us she convinced Jared to set up the tent in the backyard. Jared even made them a campfire out of some scrap wood he had laying around. It was quite the fire, maybe a little too big for a backyard fire :) but oh well it didn't catch the house on fire. I don't know if you can see Blake's arms in the picture it is a little dark, but he has his arms up around his head just relaxing like his dad does, he is so cute. :)
We weren't going to let Blake sleep outside with the girls but he went into the tent and got in the sleeping bag and was very content, so we thought why not.... Jared and I went inside and watched a movie, about an hour into it we decided to just go check on the kids. When we peered into the tent with the flashlight Blake's face was right there. He had been up the whole time playing with Cleo and running all over the tent. That was the end of Blake's camping adventure his mean old parents made him come inside and sleep in his room. :(

About 5 in the morning Kayla came in crying that she was scared and that her stomach really hurt. Well we knew what that meant... Blake had the stomach flu a few days ago and when we felt her forehead she had a fever. I got her a bowl because I knew the vomiting would begin soon and got her to take some medicine before it started. She has been pretty sick today, slept through most of the day and couldn't keep anything down until this evening. Hopefully she will be doing better tomorrow and then ready for school on Monday. :) I know I am a mean mom.

Winter Cabin

Jared got drawn for 6B bull this year which is in Sycamore Canyon. Since we were headed up to Flag to see Jared's brother Mac come home from his mission he thought we should hike down to Winter Cabin in Sycamore Canyon. It is about an hour drive out of Flagstaff on a dirt road.
The hike wasn't too bad getting to the cabin it is hiking out that sucks. :) Oh and we forgot to bring Blake's hiking backpack so Jared and I (mostly Jared especially on the way up) got to hold him for most of the hike.
There is a little Spring just a little ways from the cabin so we hiked down to it so Cleo could get a drink. When we got to the Spring there were a ton of Wasps flying around getting a drink so the girls are telling Jared to hurry and take the picture so they could leave.
Like I said before the hike going up the canyon is pretty tough and with the altitude change it was hard to breath at times but we made it and we were all so happy to sit in the air conditioned truck when we were done. Sitting I think we take for granted, while I am sitting I don't usually think, oh wow this feels so good.... But that day just a little rest of sitting on the ground in the woods for a few minutes was like a gift from heaven. :)

The toothfairy is going broke

So in the past month Elizabeth has lost 2 teeth and Kayla has lost 3! Kayla who previously swallowed her first two teeth actually pulled out her dangling teeth with the help of Elizabeth. The first tooth she lost this month was around the time Nick got married, so with grandparents, great grandparents, and the tooth fairy in town she made 16 bucks on one tooth! Unfortunately her other two teeth she only made a buck a piece. :(

What we have been up to

Well it seems like we have been really busy and boring this month. We moved into our new home the end of last month and have been slowly unpacking. Once I unpacked all the essentials unpacking started to find a backseat to other things. We also have been cleaning up our rental to get it ready for our "final" inspection which we had yesterday, YAY we are all done with the rental!

My sister Bridgit came to stay with us for a few days before my brother Nick got married. We watched Pride and Prejudice and Lost in Austen. Before we started the movies we went to the store and bought a lot of junk food, my kids thought it was awesome! They each got to choose there own candy, very fun. One night while Bridgit was here we went out to dinner with my mom and cousin Caisa. We went to Macaroni Grill and had to each write a poem about girls night out on the table, they were pretty good but I don't remember them. We then went to dress barn to find something pink for me to wear to Nicks wedding. After that we headed to Superstition mall and listed to some sellslady try to sell us some REALLY SPARKLY makeup, she even put purple eyeshadow on me..... Apparently if you want a good deal you should keep telling them no thanks, I think the price of the makeup started at 25 bucks a piece all the way down to 10.... but we still said NO, it was really sparkly. So on the way home for girls night a sonic commercial popped into my head about two women hanging out on girls night and one of the women say at the end that they should go get some eggs and...... boil them. Well it was pretty funny because at dinner we had discussed at length how to boil eggs. :) We are so lame.

Well on the 20th of June my brother Nick and his lovely wife Katherine were marrried. They had the temple ceremony around 9 and then we all headed to the Wright House for pictures and a luncheon. It was all very nice and I am so excited for Nick to start this new chapter in his life, here are a few pictures of our kids in their flower girl outfits the Angie was so nice to make for them. Oops I must have deleted the one of Elizabeth oh well, here is a picture of Kayla in her flower girl outfit. :)

We Closed!!!!!

Well it finally happened after almost 6 years we are homeowners again. It was a long and grueling process but in the end the house we got was worth the wait. :) We found out we had closed at 4 pm today (Friday), when we got the call we were so excited, we thought we were going to have to wait until after the Memorial Day to close. So being true to our promise we all put on our swimming suits and headed over for our first swim. Here are a few pictures of us this evening....


Blake loves his new swing set and jumps on the swings every time we go over to just hang out in our backyard. Hey now we have the key! We can actually get inside.


Elizabeth and Kayla waiting for us to get ready for the big jump...


Fake pose before we have the count down. 3-2-1 JUMP!!!!



I was a little nervous to jump in, it has been raining all week and I thought it would be really cold but it wasn't the water felt great.


Jared trying out the diving board, we had thought at one point we would get rid of the diving board for safety reasons, I doubt that's going to happen though... Diving boards are too much fun. :) Well tomorrow is going to be a fun day, yay we get to pack and haul stuff over to the new house all day long, bleh.... Can't wait for the work to be over with. Goodnight everyone.

Hawaiian Luau

Even though Elizabeth's birthday is not until the end of July we usually have a "fake" birthday party for her at the end of the school year so it is easier to get all of her friends together. This year Elizabeth fell in love with some Hawaiian invitations, so a Hawaiian Luau we had! The night before the party Elizabeth and I went to the 99cent store and found hula hoops, grass skirts, beach balls and other great Luau decorations. When the girls arrived they each received a lei and began making flowers out of tissue paper. While the girls made their flowers I began whipping up Mango/Pineapple/OJ/Strawberry/Guava fruit smoothies. They were a big hit. We had a hula hoop contest (we thought the hula hoops were not going to work because we bought them at the 99cent store and none of us in our family could get them to work but apparently it is just us lame Dutton's that can't hula hoop :)) They had a limbo contest and Kayla won. We had a relay race where the girls had to put on grass skirts, flip flops, sun glasses, straw hats, leis, and carry a beach ball. They dressed and then ran around the "island" and quickly took everything off for the next girl to put on. It was a big hit and really fun. I also made coconut cupcakes that the girls are eating in this picture. Elizabeth sure is pretty silly when you get her around all of her friends. We are pretty sad to be leaving this great group of girls but with Elizabeths fun personality I'm sure she wont have much trouble finding new friends.









Jared took Blake to an urban lake to go fishing while we had our Luau. Not thinking he took the camera with him in case he caught a fish! About thirty minutes into the party I went to get the camera and could not find it! After calling Jared to learn he had taken it (which he felt bad about) I had to call our next door neighbor and borrow their camera. Oh well it worked out. Elizabeth got mostly jewlery from her friends, which she has been wearing all week. Her friend Jenny made her a rag time High School musical quilt, I was very impressed that she took so much time to make Elizabeth such a thoughtful present. Jenny's mom told me that on their way over to the party Jenny had put a kitten into her bag to also give to Elizabeth for her birthday.... Good thing her mom found out before it got here!
Well this saturday we will be again having another Hawaiian Luau. Apparently Kayla is old enough now to realize that she too needs a "fake" birthday party before school is out and we move away from all of her friends.

Angels

Last night (the Saturday before Mother's Day) Kayla gave the prayer and asked that when the primary was singing for the moms during church that the angels would touch my heart. How sweet is that. So this morning when she came to sit back down after the primary had sung I told her how the Angels had touched my heart while she was singing. :) I love my Kayla what a sweety.

Buying a house!

Jenny and I are in escrow on a new 1988 vintage house! As mentioned in my super fun Home AC Service post, we're in the inspection period. Neither of us can wait to close on it and get moved in! Here are some pics:

Here she is. The grass isn't looking quite as nice as it was the day these pictures were taken, but still pretty good. Can't wait to take the sign down.

Yeah, that's a 3 car garage and a RV gate!

Not a huge fan of the flooring, the wood is a little light and the carpet is a little dark, but it'll work. The paint on the other hand, has to go.

Should be fun painting the walls with the vaulted ceilings. We're debating scraping the popcorn from the ceilings while we're at it.

My TV room! Perfect shape and nice size. Can't wait to fill it up.

Appliances still in place, and look, nice ceiling fans! Corian counter tops, nice looking layout, and my favorite, maple cabinets. Hooray, not ugly!

We were hoping the house we bought would have gas, so it'll take some getting used to the electric stove, at least it looks good.

Ahh, the wonderful crap collection counter, where everything without a place goes.

Hidden buttons on the dishwasher. Now Blake won't start it when it's empty, stop it when it's full and change all the settings every day (or at least until he figures out how to open it)

Looking from the master bedroom, across the entryway and into the TV room. That closet on the right is under the stairs and unfinished inside, super cool.

That's the same cool closet with a view into the master bath.

This is where I will be brushing my teeth. Maybe I'll even get my own sink so I can have one free from toothpaste :-D.

Looking down the stairs, not a bad view, hopefully the bars for the banister will keep the kids on the stairs when they tumble down!

Another shot of the kitchen looking into the TV room. Not sure what to do with the niche, the girls think our hamster Spotty should reside there.

Hrm, a little tuscany in my house? I've never been a big fan of those types of sinks, but the faucet got me hooked, watching water fall over the spillway on the faucet and imagining wier calculations in my head.

The upstairs bathroom. Sure to be the subject of time sharing issues when the girls get older.

The back porch and view of grassy area. Wow, the grass is still alive, I'm sure to fix that problem with my greenish thumb!

The piece de resistance, the saltwater diving pool, diving board and all. I've been hoping for *a* pool, and a few houses we bid on actually had diving pools, but saltwater? Am I dreaming?

Funny rocky area. That's the 3rd bay of the garage sticking out (or, in it's present state, studio apartment). Not sure what to do with this area, more grass, garden, ash tree. We're going to have to do something to shade that wall from the afternoon sun.

That's the play area in the back. Nice slide and swing set. I think it is about a year and a half old but looks like the sprinklers are taking their toll.

Overall the house is excellent. The upgrades are very nice (hello ceiling fans) and for the most part in line with what I would have liked to do myself. I think the most disconcerting thing about the house is that the previous homeowners were unable to keep it. They did a lot of very nice things to the house, and must have been good people because unlike many of the foreclosures we have seen they kept the interior of the house in excellent condition. A few homes we have looked at were completely trashed and/or stripped by the previous owners. Hopefully they will be able to find an equally nice house when they are ready to purchase again, I know the pain of moving from a nice house into less than ideal conditions. I'm happy to finally be moving back into a nice house, it's been ages! :-D