the house

Well hello there!! It has been a while. In that short while my family decided to move houses. It was pretty much just up the road so it wasn't that far, but I had forgotten how much stuff we actually have and tend to collect. I am tired. I am done moving; though I think that I have much more of it ahead in my life. Well, I told Kristen that I would send her pics of the inside of the new house. She had already seen the outside...now that I think about it, I don't have any pics of the outside of the house. Oh well. I might post one later. It is red brick...just like just about everything else in this state. Please also remember that this is big for us. We have lived pretty modestly for most of our lives and now we have a chance to live fairly comfortabely. Anyway, here they are. There is a short narrative at the bottom of each of the pictures.

This is the entryway from the front door. We hardly ever use that door. We mostly come in through the garage. The door on the right is to the office and the hallway leads to the kitchen. If you turn to your left, you will walk right into the front room.

This is the office. I should have turned the light on.

Front room. Once again, I should have turned the light on. The opening you are seeing in the back by the boxes is the dining room.

...the dining room from the kitchen. Not much of a dining room right now...it will be someday...maybe.

The kitchen from the dining room. We spent most of a day painting this kitchen from a nasty green color to a mint green color. My mom loves the granite countertops. And we will be getting a new table too. In the back is the family room and the door that you see is to the three car garage. The garage isn't very long, but it is wide so it is easy to get in and out of cars. Yes!!!

The kitchen from the family room. We are probably someday going to take the paint off of the cupboards. My dad thinks that there is oak wood under there....more work. The door on the right is too the backyard and the opening by the fridge is too the dining room.

The family room. We also spent most of a day painting this from a very light blue color. My dad wanted it done before the new couches arrived. That was rough.

Backyard.

Backyard. It's pretty big.

Game room. Right at the top of the stairs. Ali's room is right on the right. Just a bit farther down on the right and you get her bathroom and then if you keep going, you get my parents door. Turn to the left down a little walkway and the boys room is on the right and Remi and I are at the end of the walkway.

Ali's room. The door in the back is a pretty decent sized walk-in closet. If you turn a little more to the left, there is a door to her bathroom. Yes, she has her own bathroom with TWO sinks. All the boys get is a jack and jill bathroom. Girls are spoiled.

Ali's bathroom from the game room. If you walk in and turn directly right, her room is there. If you turn left from where this was taken that is my parents door.

This is at the door looking left. The little door in the wall is a crawl space. And man is it a crawl space. There is not a lot of room in there at all.

Turn slightly to the right and you get the center of the room.

Turn to the right again and you get the rest of the room. The indent you see on the right is the door to the bathroom.

This is taken from their closet door which is opposite the bathroom door. The door you see there is the toilet. And yes, that jet bathtub does work and my mom loves it.

There is the bathroom door that leads to my parents bedroom. Aww, they even have an elevated sink for my dad.

This is at their closet door looking into their closet. This is the left side of the closet. All of my mom's stuff. Mind you, there is some hanging space over my head too that is up near the ceiling. Their closet ceiling is really high.

This is at the door looking at the middle of their closet. Lots of shoe space.

And this is to the right. My dad's side. It is huge. It is five to 8 paces (depending on how long your legs are) from my mom's side of the closet to my dad's side. It is very large. And don't forget the ceiling space. Very nice.

hmm. No this is not my room. This is Rayo and Nick. Messy as usual. The door in the back is their walk-in closet that isn't really that big.

This is a shot from inside their bedroom. You can see their sink, the bathroom through the door. Their closet is opposite of their sink.

This is room belongs to Remi and I. We have oak dressers, a light colored wood for a bookshelf, yellow pine for a bed frame, and a bright green wall on the left. You can't see it in this one, but you can in the next. My bed has nothing on it but the sheets and the pillows. The skateboard is Remi's. If you go around the dresser on the right, you will be looking at our side of the bathroom.

This is what I get to look at when I wake up in the morning. Door on the left is the linen closet, on the right is our walk-in closet. In the back is the shared bathroom with Rayo and Nick.

This one is taken from the entrance to our bathroom area. I tried to get all three of the wood colors in here, and the wall.

life back at home...

Well, life back at home. You know, I really love my family, I really do. Sometimes there are headaches, as with anything or anyone, but who would I be without my family. I love being home. I have been able to spend alot of time with my brothers that I wasn't able to do before. I was always gone before I left on the mission. When I got home, it was work and church. I was hardly ever home, and I couldn't do a whole lot with them. Now that I am home again, I still have a hard time doing things with them because they are all busy doing stuff everywhere else. School has started and they are in everything from football to drama to choir. Always gone. But I am looking forward to spending the next few months with them and having the priority be the family rather than everything else.

A large part of me moving home was so that I could get enough college credit to transfer back into BYU as an enrolled student rather than a visiting student or just a night class student. To be completely honest, I could have stayed in Utah and done the same thing. I was going back to fulltime work at 15 dollars an hour(which is pretty darn good for a college student in Provo) and I had a saturday job(that was just fun, I didn't really need that one) giving horse rides in Park City. I could have just taken a night class and then gotten the last three credits I needed to transfer. When my family decided not to move out to Utah, I felt very strongly that I needed to come home. To be completely honest, it is alot harder being home again than being on my own. I was just about to start doing really well financially for a college student and I was very comfortable where I was at. But, I felt that I really needed to come home. As it is, I am taking two classes(because that is all I can afford at the moment) and will be starting work again for DirectPointe as a Sales Associate on monday(finally a paycheck!). With this new job, there is a great potential for earning a lot of money. But if I am only in Texas until December, I will not have earned a whole lot. Anyway, my point is that it is working out. It was really, really hard for me the first two weeks being home because I could not get my job worked out, I had no income at all, and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get into classes. As it is now, things have worked themselves out. And it is looking like I will be back up in Utah sooner than I anticipated. Things have kinda taken an interesting twist. So, earning a lot of money with this new job will be very helpful. And reducing costs by moving home is going to help a lot as well.

Kristen came out to Texas to visit last weekend. We had an awesome time and she loved being here. We took a couple of pictures but this one beneath is my favorite. This was taken the morning that she flew home.