City of Rocks

Well, we didn't make it to Moab this year but we did go up to the City of Rocks in southern Idaho. It's on the border between Idaho and Utah basically and it's a quick 2 1/2 hour drive up there. We met up with a few old friends and a few new friends. We stayed in the best campsite in the park. The "city", as it is commonly referred, is basically a rock version of New York (of course on a much smaller scale). It's just a big field full of rocks that resemble a city. Really cool place, a rock climbers paradise. It is outside the city of Almo, a tiny little place with one tiny grocery store, two (yes, two) restaurants and a visitor's center. In recent years, they have built up a hot spring to be a great place to hang out in it's pool like atmosphere (and incredibly hot springs, 111 is what one of the pools is).

We drove up on Saturday morning because Mike needed to ride his bike to prepare for LOTOJA (explanation of this in a previous post). We also got called out for search and rescue at about 9 on Friday night, resulting in a quick and successful evacuation of an ill hiker by a Lifeflight helicopter. We got there around noon and hung out, took a nap, then did a quick climb before meeting up with everyone at the pizza joint. We had a great time at the hot spring then back to the campsite for some yummy S'mores and fellowship with friends. Sunday morning yielded a nice sunny outlook and a little bit of sleeping in. After breakfast, the crew of 8 headed up to Swiss Cheese and String Cheese, two climbs next to each other with a great place to hang out. Mike lead up both of the climbs to set top ropes for everyone else to have fun on. Right as the last people are finishing up the climbs, the weather dropped about 20 degrees very very quickly and within about 10 minutes we were feeling rain drops. We quickly packed up and headed off to the campsite so that we were not in danger of lightening while on the rock. We ate a quick lunch then headed to town to hang out inside during the rain storm. We killed some time eating pie, visiting the visitor's center, exploring a few touristy places around the city then headed back to camp. Since it was still quite cold and the weather forecast looking even more grim for Monday, Mike and I decided to head home after a few hours hanging out around the campfire. We made our quick trip home Sunday night to arrive to our house which the power had gone out on. No worries, cause we just crashed.

Part of the group watching the climbers, from left to right, Brent, Amanda, Michelle and Emmy.

London, the crazy climber dog. He loved the city, he could just wander and climb rocks. Apparently, he is really into rock climbing, he loved it!

Fogg is belaying James, the climber. Thought this was a cool shot.

This is Scotty, a new friend.

We spent today just bumming around, sleeping in, watching TV and generally just relaxing on Labor Day. Mike did some work around the yard after the rain stopped.

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend as well, wish it could be just a few days longer...

Happy Birthday Gabby

Yesterday, August 26th, was Gabby's fourth birthday. Our beautiful niece was born the same year as Mike and I were married so it's sort of easy to remember how old she is. We bought her her yearly winter jacket again, a cute Patagonia Down Sweater. We called and said happy birthday but I think she was more interested in putting on the nail polish and lipstick that we also sent her.

Home

We finally feel like it's home. Well, at least I do. When I get home, I don't see a list of projects still left to complete but I see my house. I can relax and chill now that everything is done. It's great to take bike rides straight from the house and to just hang out there.

Sorry to everyone that missed the party, we know how Saturdays and summers can be. No worries, we have full faith that all of you will be there there sometime soon. We had a good time, lots of food, lots of dogs running around.

Now that life has seemed to settle down, at least for a couple of weeks, we are ramping up our plans for the fall. We are heading to Moab over Labor day so we can absolutely fry ourselves. But it'll be fun as always, anyone else wanna come? Then it's off to LOTOJA (that's Logan to Jackson, a 200+ mile road bike race for those of you who don't know) on September 6th for Mike. I'm his support vehicle while he rides. Then a friend's wedding, search and rescue training at the City of Rocks in Idaho, and mom and dad visiting at some point. We love chaos don't we! Soon it'll be full blown fall and then the snow falls!

We'll keep you updated on our adventures!

Finally, pictures!

It's been a long time coming, but we've finally finished setting up the house! All the pictures are hung and the boxes unpacked. It's really starting to feel like home. London is being such a great dog, very adaptable to the new space. Last night he was just laying on the floor like he always does without great concern. He never had any problems during the move, in fact, he is better behaved and seems to genuinely be happy. He hasn't lashed out, chewed anything up, had accidents in the house, or other typical dog stress responses. Maybe he is more tired from following us around every day and night as we finish getting everything set up. If we walk anywhere, so does he. And we've been walking a lot. So, without further ado, here is the house! Though you can't truly appreciate it unless you are actually there (hint, hint, come visit!)

This is the front of the house. Kinda plain right now, but I think we will put some skis on top of the garage.

Living room. It's so nice and open that I can't take a picture of the whole thing. But anyway, to the far right is another couch and you can see on the side of the picture, there is a fireplace.

This is the view from the living room into the kitchen. It's basically one big room, which we love.

Here is a picture from the kitchen back into the living room.

Master Bedroom, can't see through the windows in this picture but there are mountains right outside!

Master closet. If you can see, it's freaking huge. The bathroom is off to the right, which is also freaking huge.

Guest Bedroom. Also known as April's room. But anyone else can stay there too.

Office. Nothing special here, a bunch of books and a desk. You can see the big rock retaining wall out the windows.

Settling In, Having a Party

We are getting pretty well settled in now, all there is left to do is hang pictures and get decorations up, and clean the house. We are loving the house a ton and I'm having a great time organizing, as you all know how much I love to do that. We are having a little sump pump problem but we should have that resolved soon. Eventually we will need to get some paint on the very white walls but we will get to that whenever we get to it.
Having a party next Saturday, August 16th, as a housewarming. I hate the term housewarming because it implies that we need gifts (which we really don't) so we'll call it the "Check out our new digs". Details are: bring a side dish, dessert, or drink to share and bring your own meat. I will provide buns and burger toppings (tomatoes, onions, lettuce, etc). Starting around 6pm. We'll have some yard games and feel free to bring kids. Hope to see you there!

Reflections

As hard as it is, I'd like to step back for a moment and reevaluate the last couple of weeks now that we are in our new house. First of all, we love it. I personally love it more than I thought that I would. It is quiet and dark and in a great neighborhood and the house is huge! We haven't found the location to be very inconvenient at all. A quick 10 minute drive to almost anywhere, as found out by the many runs to home depot already. But, I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts about our situation and how things went.

I got a little frustrated about the whole house buying experience due to the lack in communication by all of the many parties involved. But you know what? As my dad always says, "It always works out". Though stressful, we got out in time for our renters to move in and we had just enough help to make it work. It worked out. And really, there are far many people in far worse situations than buying a really big house in a great location. And that leads me to my second thought: Boy, do I have it good! I was starting to feel kinda bad because I was being a big whiner about the delay and timing when I started to unload my many many belongings into my very very nice and big house. Shouldn't I be using my fortunes for better things than for myself? Yes, and that leads to my third thought: Come to our house! We want to have our house open to anyone and everyone. Need a place to stay? Wanna hang out for a bit? Need to host a party? Visiting for a bit? Having a meeting? Come to our house. We are very adamant about making sure that everyone knows that our door is always open to everyone. When I was growing up, my mom and dad had that same theory, and people would really just walk in the door anytime. Forget the door bell, just walk right in!

Though I feel bad about the amount of things I own and have that so many other people don't have in this world, I will justify and redeem myself by giving back to the community and using my fortune for other things. And learn that I should stop whining about the little things...

Again, I'll post pics when I find the power cord, which I hope to unpack tonight. Come visit, our house is always open!

We're In!

Yesterday, Thursday, we signed our closing papers at 11am and finished moving everything into the new house at 11pm (and worked in between that time too). I'd show you pictures but I can't find the cord for the camera so you'll have to wait until I unpack that particular box. Still need a little help moving individual boxes from the garage to the appropriate rooms and a little bit of furniture but at least everything is at the new place!