So I only took about two years off...

Lots has happened in two years. Lets see, where did I leave off...

The family came to live with me in June of 2014, the Maryland house sold, the Utah one was bought, and we are all settled in. I surprised everyone with presents when they arrived. Michael got a Camelback type drink bladder, Katie and Fiona got stuffed animals, and Jen got a Jeep wrangler unlimited with a 6 inch lift and 35 inch Tires. Everyone loved their presents.

We have settled in completely and are pretty much from Utah now, all of us prefer the more open and friendly lifestyle over the scheduled play dates in Maryland. We are happy.

As I already stated, much has happened in two years, more posts to come covering our adventures out West.

The kid's rooms

Balancing yard work, unpacking, and painting has proven taxing. The kids get their own rooms in the new house so I did a custom paint job for each one.

 Michael's room probably took the longest what with the "Sith Comoflauge" as I like to call it, Jen and Michael drew the bubbles and I painted them in later after they had gone back to Maryland, it came out looking awesome.

Katie's room is pink and white, she left her beanie boo baby whatevers on the little shelves above her bed so I left them there.

I actually finished Fiona's room first, it was brown, now its lilac, she inherited the loft bed from Michael since she has the smallest room.

Arrival of our stuff!

I'm way behind on blog posts now of course. Anyway the Uboxes arrived, the Elder's quorum showed up same day to unload them.

Some stuff went in the entry-room.

The rest went in the Family room. What a mess!

The couches were all in but not in a usable way for a week or so while I sorted through things.

I'm still sorting through things but I got the TV set up. With the b ig couch there. I have been sleeping on this couch, I needed the remote to fill the air bladders in the sleep number bed and couldn't find it so I spent weeks on this couch.

Truth be told, I got the bed together and I still sleep on the couch, its just more convenient not to have to move when a show is over I can just shut off the TV and drift off.

Carrying On

The Salt Lake Valley from Ensign Peak

After Jen and the Kids went back to MD to finish the school year, I got lonely, so I started finding ways to distract myself. I went up Ensign peak in SLC and got this awesome pano of the valley. If you look at the horizon, you can see the point of the mountain, we live almost due east of that. Just a little south, but mostly east.

I also took the Truck out to see how the 4X4 would handle on some mountain terrain. Fording was fine, mud was fine, but rocks were a little more than the light truck tires could handle:

Upon replacing the tire, I then took the truck up Timpanogos canyon up to where the road closes for the winter. Then I hiked up a trail, past a bubbly brook, and got a good shot of Timpanogos from the back:

Bubbly Brook

Timpanogos peak from the other side

Good exercise and pretty vistas. Then the day came and our stuff arrived from MD. More on that in the next post: Move-in Day

The MD -> Utah Visit

So I went back to MD to pack up all our stuff and ship it to our new home. The whole crew came out to visit Utah over spring break.

While I was in MD, we went to the National Zoo in DC:

Michael got up close and personal with an Orangutan.

Fiona muscled her way in.

Katie was there to see the Baby panda, and Jen has some great pics of that, I'll have to get them from her and get them on the blog eventually.

So we got the house packed up and shipped off and we all flew to Utah.

While they were here, we tried to do lots and lots of fun things, here we are feeding fish at the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls in Provo canyon, the falls were pretty but as soon as they saw the fish, the falls were forgotten:

All in all I think they had a good time and we got to see most of their cousins at least once and spend some time with Grandma Z as well. It was great having them here and I didn't want them to go back, but alas, they eventually abandoned me and returned to their lives back in MD, albeit for only a few more months.

Squatting in my new residence.

These are a few images of the house. The new kitchen, and the front room. This is how I had it set up before our things arrived from MD.

This is the "bed" that I slept on for four months. Jen and the kids have it now as they are living the squatter life like I just finished doing.

The New House

Click here for the google street view.