Our new home!!!

 

 

 

 

Casey and I are not ones for change.

We drive our vehicles until we absolutely have to get a different one.

We don't venture off our list of 5 restaurants for date night.

We had been living in our barely 1400 sq ft home for 8.5 years when we felt like

it was time for a change. We honestly were kind of dreading having to move.

We LOVED our sweet home that had been so good to us.

 It was the house we brought all of our babies home from the hospital to. 

We LOVED our neighbors.

We LOVED the quiet gated community we were tucked back off of Greenfield road.

I LOVED my morning routine of loading Lindi in the stroller and jogging to the park with

Rusty peddling in front of me on his bike.

Most importantly we LOVED our ward.

We knew the time was drawing near but always felt like our next home would fall into our laps.

We found a realtor and starting looking on MLS for almost a year.

Nothing seemed right for us.

Almost to the point of discouragement.

It wasn't until January when I got a text from a friend saying that the home

2 doors down from her was going up for sale by owner.

Interest did spark but we didn't really act on it.

Good news was that it was still in our same ward and the beloved street

that all of our kids friends live on!

About a week after the text we got a phone call from a man in our ward telling us

about the same house going up for sale.

We decided to meet with the owners and long story short, we bought it!!

Every thing about seemed right to us.

It was going to need lots of TLC but I love a good project:)

 

Here she is in all her glory!

Keep in mind that these are the before pics.

We pretty much gutted every. single. thing. inside that house!

The outside will get landscaped and painted in the near future.

 

The kids had a blast taking sledge hammers to the walls and floors.

We had lots of help with the demo from papa and grammy.

 Our neighbor Russ Carol helped tear out part of the kitchen.

 

Jefferson took over the bathrooms

 

We did push back the kitchen wall to allow more space.

That little table nook and all the ugly arches went bye, bye!

SO, that exposed wall stayed like that for probably 3 weeks:/
Our first night sleeping in the house we couldn't believe how LOUD
the crickets were. We thought it was just our new surroundings.
NOPE, they had made a new home in our ac vents!!! Goo.

Remodeling this house has sure taught me patients!!

 That white door leads into the master. We took it out and is now part of

my kitchen cabinets.

In the middle of it all I had a garage sell!

Marcie and my mom threw some of their stuff in and was a HUGE hit!

We were there from 6am-1pm. People kept coming!

 

We took out some steps that led from the entry to the living room and dining room.

That was probably one of my favorite things and made the biggest difference.

This called for some concrete!
Luckily a knew a guy who was pretty cheap;)

 

We also needed to fill in some floor they had to jack hammer out for plumbing

and electrical work.

You can see the new wall!

 

We took out the mammoth bush that hadn't been cut back in years!

I had to decide on paint and oh boy, that was TOUGH!!

 

I bought about 15 different samples and Bethany, my friend, let me borrow a bucket of hers because

they had just painted their house.

I ended up using Autumn Haze with 25% of the formula.

I LOVE IT!

It is the perfect creamy, off white color to go against my bright white trim.

I did use an awesome gray called Balboa Mist, its from Benjamin Moore.

That is in the kids bathroom and bedrooms.

 

We started the remodel in March.

Our renters were coming at the beginning of June.

I was getting really nervous that we would be camping in our backyard because everything

was still a mess! Here is what our kitchen looked like 3 days before move in day!!

The workers were on crunch time.

There was a group of them there every time I drove by the house.

There is the plumber, electrician and painter standing in the street.

GET BACK TO WORK, haha!

 

The carpenters head quarters.

 

I am SO SAD I don't have any pictures of moving day:(
It was just crazy and I didn't think about it.

My mom has plenty of video footage tho:)

 Lots of family and friends there to help us.

I am humbled by the generosity.

I was talking to Stephanie on the phone the day before the move and she said Travis

wanted to come help move. I told her we would be totally fine ( seeing how they live in Gallup).

She kept insisting and I kept declining.

Well come to find out he was in Mesa, haha.

I think she got offended I didn't want him there to help us:)

My mom and Marcie watched our kids all day which was a huge help.

Here is the one picture I do have.

It was after everything had been moved over.

I thought I would be a hot mess, ya know.... because change is hard for me.

I didn't cry once, I think my mind was on over load to get all sentimental.

Plus we still own it so it wasn't a forever walk away from it kind of deal.

 

We however did need to stay at my parents house for a week until we had at least one toilet, one sink and one shower head installed. Minor details:) Makes you appreciate everything you have!! And my parents are rock stars for letting us crash with them!

 

 

FINALLY after 3 months we got to sleep at our house!

I am in love with it.

Even though we still don't have countertops, tile in kids bathroom, faucets

and such. But we DID just get door knobs, woo woo woo.

I will post pictures of the whole house once its mostly completed.

 

For now we eat on the floor and pee in one bathroom and wash our hands clear on the other side of the house in the other bathroom. All of it is just adding to our fun memories of our NEW HOME!!



Triathlon

 

 

I am the Mia Maid Counselor in our ward.

Can I just say how FUN my group of girls are?!

When I was put into this calling I was really nervous.

I knew it as going to be a lot of work and a big time commitment.

But these girls make my calling so enjoyable!!

Casey and I say all of the time how lucky I am that I have this group to be with.

He actually just got a new church calling and gets to teach some of these girls

in Sunday school.

Poor them I guess, Goodman overload:)

 

10 months ago the Teachers quorum invited us to do a triathlon with them that they

had done the previous year. Without even asking the girls  I said yes!

I knew they were capable of hard things and I really wanted a good motivation

to exercise better and have a hard goal in mind to accomplish.

 

We started training 4 months before hand.

I made an exercise chart for them to mark off and do at home.

We dedicated mutual nights to running and had a big bike

ride with the Teachers one Saturday.

 

Before we knew it we were ready to take off for the big race!!

It was up in Pima. Only six of my Mia Maids could come so we

were able to all fit in my car!

We watched Maleficent on the way up and I enjoyed

listening to all of their boy crushes:)

I love how open they are with me!

 

When we arrived we went to the big camping spot and dropped off our stuff.

We then headed over to the stake center where we checked in, got our race number

marked on our bodies and got our backpack of goods.

 

It was a MAD HOUSE.

There were 1600 racers.

 

Here we are in single file line, squished in the building waiting our turn

to get our stuff.

 

 

 

I ran into my aunt Jori!!

She and my uncle were with their youth group.

And she was running the race!

There were all sorts of age groups there participating which made me more at ease.

 



 

After you got checked in you went out into the parking lot for a dance!

It was SO FUN. I don't know why I get a high off of dancing in big groups.

I'm pretty sure I got some glances for the crazy, middle aged lady getting her groove on:)

 

The dance ended at 9:30 and we headed back to the camping grounds.

It was in a huge softball field, kind of like at the inter stake center.

Boys on one side, girls on the other with porta-potties in the middle:)

 

We did not come prepared for staying warm:/

The Teachers quorum leader said it was best to sleep under the stars to make clean

up the next morning easier. Which it was, but man did we FREEZE our tushies off that night!

I was so cold I wore my Ugg boots to bed!!!

We tried to get as snugged together as possible on the tarp. 

Some girls took cover in the car during the night to stay warmer as well as Sheri my advisor.

I hadn't been happier to see 5am in all my life!

Oh, and it didn't help that I had had a sore throat that whole week.

By morning I had NO VOICE and my nose was a faucet!

 

 Once we were thawed out and had some food in us we were back in good spirits.

But then the nerves started setting in.

I was most nervous about the swimming portion.

I had heard horror stories about how cold the water is.

I HATE being in cold water.

I know it would only be for a few laps, but still!!

 

 

The layout of the race was:

3 laps in the high school pool.

6 miles on your bike.

 1.8 mile run.

 

Here we are getting our stuff ready



Riding over to the starting line.

Waiting in line to get our timers put on our legs.



 

Setting up our bikes and getting ready for the swim

This is Sheri my advisor.

LOVE her, she is so amazing.



 Getting closer to the start!!

Final line-up to jump into the icy, cold water!:/

You can see the ankle things they used to keep track of our time.

 

Some how I got pushed to the front of the line and went in FIRST!

As I was running to the guy in charge of my

lane he was yelling: just jump in, don't think

about it!

Basically was ready to shove me in if I hesitated and stopped!

 

I clinched my teeth and took the plunge!

I let out a pathetic yelp because I had no voice and swam as fast as

 my frozen, numb body could go!

 

Here we are after the swim, running to the next transition!

I literally could not feel my legs!!

I'm bummed I didn't get any pictures of the pool but you can kind of

see it in the background.

 



 

We threw on our shoes, shirt and were off!

 

 

This is where we started to separate from each other and go at our own

pace.

I was proud of myself and stayed up with Aleah, the girl in the pink shirt who

is pretty athletic.

The first 3 miles were uphill and challenging.

The last 3 gave you a nice break before the run.

 

We passed our bikes off to the helpers and started running!

 



AHH, the finish line:)

It was so fun to see my girls cross that line and see the smile on their faces!

 

2 of my girls beat me!:)

Aleah got the fastest time with 57 minutes.

My time was 1 hour, 1 minute, 27 seconds.

Not bad for being sick!

 



 

Showing off our well deserved medals!

 



 

After loading everything up we

went to the temple for some pictures.

I have never been to the Gila Valley temple so it was fun to finally see it.

 



We hit up Subway for lunch then drove back to the valley.

I was BEAT by the time we got home.

I remember thinking, this is why girls don't do camp outings every

month like the boys.

We couldn't hack it!!

Thank goodness I have a month before girls camp to recover!

I ended up having to miss church and went to urgent care.

I was hacking up a lung and literally couldn't make a peep.

I had laryngitis and didn't get my voice back for 10 days!

I always thought it would be fun to loose my voice until I couldn't yell at my kids.

Haha.

But what a great time I had.

We will remember this for a LONG time!
In fact I am already looking forward to next year!:)