#37...I think?

Tres Leches for numero 37. The boys are getting big and I'm getting old - long past the age that you can fit the right number of candles on the cake.

When you're young and all you want to be is a few years older my brother Jeff used to always subtract two from my years. I've now reached the age that even I often no longer remember what the right number is.

It's a Zoo in the Backyard

Working from home today something out the window caught my eye out of the office window. There was a deer about 5 feet away from the back door.

I grabbed the camera and went upstairs to get a better look from above. We'd heard that we'd sometimes see some deer in the backyard, and we'd seen a couple on two different occasions, but this morning there were 12!

It was pretty fun to watch the little herd wander around (yep, I had to look up what you call a group of deer). The next door neighbor has a big remodel going so eventually one of the workers scared them off, which was pretty cool too to see so many deer bouncing around the trees to get away. We're still pretty excited to live here...

Where to Find Us Now...

For nearly three years we've been driving Beau to elementary school in Holladay where he’s in a Chinese Immersion program. It was only 7 miles, but would take about 20 minutes each way. Marta had a car pool so it wasn’t so bad, but next year as we look at getting our other boys into the program, the car pool wouldn’t work. The Junior High and High Schools that will offer the advanced Chinese courses are all going to be in the same area, so over the past several months Marta and have kept our eyes open for the right type of home to make our next move. Well, we’ve found it and we've moved to the woods!



Growing up in Missouri I’ve always had trees and green all around me, so the living in the Utah desert has always been an adjustment. We found this very secluded home right in the middle of the city and just fell in love with it. The home sits on a private drive shared with 2 other homes. We’re pretty much on an island here with a creek that runs both in front (that’s a bridge in the first photo) and behind our home. The home was built in 1977 and has barely been touched since - which is also exciting for us since we didn’t want to pay for someone else’s upgrades. We’ve got some big plans to turn this into our “forever” home, but more on that later this summer.

I shot this video from the top level of the deck this morning. It has been fun looking out and watching squirrels and chipmunks in the trees, and we've also seen a few deer wander through. We've all slept very soundly this week listening to the stream run. It's going to be even more fun to see this place change over the spring and summer.

It was difficult to leave our old house after so much work and effort, but the excitement we feel to be here has really made it a lot easier.  In the end we closed on both the sale of our old house and this one on the same day.

The boys are all also very excited. They love exploring the backyard, but the kicker for them are the island old-school McDonald’s swivel chairs. We were blown away yesterday by how nice the ward seems. We feel so blessed and grateful for the way everything has work out for us with this move. 

Now if I could just find the screws to re-assemble the bunk beds…