But we're LOVING our new home. We're loving the area and the ward is nice. It'll take time to feel as comfortable in our new ward as we did in our old ward but it will come. In the mean time, and forever, I'm keeping in touch with my friends from the Riviera Ward and trying to go to playgroup there at least a couple times a month so Parker can play with his friends.
While I'm blogging, I may as well write about what a WONDERFUL Mother's Day I had. Darrin made me delicious french toast and orange juice. He wanted to bring it to me in bed but as we were speaking in church, I had to be up and getting ready. He had written me THE SWEETEST note of all time to wake up to and also had the kids draw me pictures. Parker traced "I love you Mommy" which was totally legible, such a sweet gesture. I was in tears.
Then we headed to church where we switched off watching the kids while the other spoke in sacrament meeting. My talk time was to introduce our family and bear my testimony. Darrin's topic was "The importance of loving your wife as a priesthood holder". It was SUCH a good talk (way to go honey!)! It was so heartfelt and sweet.
For my gift, I had chosen out an external flash for my DSLR which I LOVE (thank you Darrin!). After church we came home and Darrin made us sandwiches for lunch. Then he helped put the kids down for naps, while we were also able to nap (RARE and amazing!). After our nap, he helped make the salad we were assigned for our family dinner and we headed to his families for dinner.
I felt SO connected to my hubs throughout the day. Talk about royal treatment! I'm SO grateful to such a wonderful husband and friend. I feel like we're at a really great time in our marriage and I just want life to pause so I can soak in all the great memories we've been making. I love you Darrin-it's like you were made for me. Thank you for making my mother's day so wonderful and sweet!
Now, onto pics of the house (the first thing anyone says when they walk in the door is "Wow, now that's the biggest couch I've ever seen..." We got it because we like for everyone to get to actually sit on a couch when they come over :)):
On the left is the front door
The picture doesn't do justice for how big the room is. It's our living room and family room in one. Notice our HUGE, new couch and new table/chairs :). We love them:
In the back are the bedrooms. New appliances (you can't see the walk-in pantry but it's behind the door on the left of the kitchen), I love our sliding door that brings in lots of light off the kitchen, new granite and I love my backsplash :)
Closer pic of the kitchen:
All open:
Hall bathroom. The shelves are made up of stuff we brought back from the beach in our recent trip to mexico (with the exception of the fish). I made the shadow box with sand from our resort and washed up coral and sea leaves we found):
Master bedroom/bathroom. Pardon the PLAIN-ness of it. Like I said, I'll be fixing that :) P.S. I LOOOOVE my bathroom!!!!
I hesitated to post a picture of the outside as it has NO landscaping and HORRIBLE grass (we're working on it and praying we don't have to tear it all out and re-seed (with 10,000 sq. feet of lawn sod would be outrageously expensive!). But, I thought I'd post for the sake of visualizing where we now live. If you have any landscaping suggestions (types of plants or trees) we're open to them. We did decide we'll be planting a bunch more fruit trees (we currently have 4. I'll be canning all fall...but excited...I think...) but we can't decide on whether we want to take out some of the dirt places to plant, or use them all. It's A LOT to take care of and plant...stressful...
Well, there you have it. A tour of most of the upstairs. I didn't take a picture of the salon/laundry room as it's still not quite finished. Updated picture to come. And I obviously didn't take pictures of the basement as we have a wonderful tenant down there. But it looks faaabulous. She's done a great job!
