the new abode

hubby and I have always talked about buying a house. but we didn’t want to make something so permanent until we were sure it was going to be home for at least a few years. we started looking at houses. got ahold of our realtor friend and started making the rounds looking at houses.

it was fun, but completely exhausting to look at houses.

I really liked walking into a house and knowing that there was no way this was our house. it made things so much easier.

we first started looking at houses in the lower price range. but they didn’t have a garage or a fenced yard. a fenced yard was kind of a must have with the two blondes. and we felt we really needed a garage or some sort of storage unit that came with the house. no sense in paying monthly for a storage unit somewhere else.

so we changed our price range and found some cute houses with the garage AND fenced yards.

most of them still needed some work to be a completed house….like unfinished basements. that I felt was not something I want to deal with as a first time home owner. sure I don’t have a problem with home repairs….but I didn’t want to walk into a house and have to finish a basement. I’m okay with painting…but sheet rocking….I haven’t the slightest clue.

all of the houses without finished basements were OUT!

we browsed most of the houses online prior to setting up an appointment to see the inside. every house had pictures on the internet of the inside except for one. we didn’t know if we wanted to take the time to see it. it only had a picture of the front of the house. we had driven by the house and saw the nice yard and a very nice 2 car detached garage. we took the plunge and decided to look at the inside.

we immediately walked into a nice spacious kitchen.

there was some older carpet in the master bedroom.

mustard colored 70’s shag carpet. AND the bathroom off the master bedroom had carpet in it too. I knew that would be the first thing to be updated if we bought the house.

the other 2 rooms had linoleum in them.

 

and….as hubby says, “look its already blue for when we have our boy.”
yes. yes it is babe. but for right now it will probably be a guest room.

nice spacious living room.

we fell in love with this house. it was in a quiet neighborhood. the yard was a huge upgrade from where we were renting. actually…in the yard the previous owners had a garden…and the size of their garden was the size of our backyard. our yard now is probably 7 times the size of the old yard.

(you can see part of the garden plot here)

this is the majority of the backyard. I joked with aron that the puppies would probably think we were just at the dog park with the big yard.

we looked at one more house after this house, but still came back to the “Martin House".” we cleaned up some bills that needed to be taken care of and closed on the house on July 19th. it was ours! we were excited.

that day we dealt with our work stuff and then took the puppies over for their first romp. it brought tears to my eyes. they were so happy to have so much room to run. I felt like I could literally see their smiles. I’m sure they didn’t know it was all theirs….but its so nice for them to have so much room.

we were pretty well packed at our old place. I knew before we moved into the house I wanted to replace the master bedroom floor. hubby and I pulled the carpet out and got ready to lay wood floors.

thankfully we had help from some amazing people otherwise we might still be sleeping on the living room floor.

there was linoleum under the carpet….it wasn’t bad looking, but we had already bought the wood flooring and I was ready for the new look.

so much better than the shag.

please come visit! we have plenty of room!

its been far too long

I’m still kicking.

I’ve been super busy since I last wrote.

things just tend to take off in the summer and come fall…well it didn’t really slow down.

I’m on the road right now. we’re headed to moab, ut to run a 10K. more on that later. I promise.

so many fun and exciting things have happened.

I promise I will get you a post on what I was up to this summer including….

-buying our very first house!
-bathroom remodel
-making an rookie backpacking trip to bomber mountain
-saving the forest one burning tree at a time
-making the yearly trip to black mountain lookout.
-running half marathon number 4…and barely surviving.
-the winter sun 10K…that we are currently enroute to.

phew hopefully you all can keep up….and I can hold up to my end of the deal.

see you REAL soon!

independence day.

hope you all had a wonderful holiday!

we sure did in our neck of the woods.

I knew what our plan was the minute I realized I got a paid holiday AND the hubby was off.

another location to mark off the list of places to visit on the bighorns. lake geneva.

I asked my good friend liz if her and her fiance wanted to join in on the fun. she was all for it, he however was not to keen…..from what I’m told.  by the end of the night liz had talked jacob into taking the trip with us.

we all met up the next morning and rolled up the face of the mountain. we hit a little snag coming up the bumpy mountain road. we lost a dog, out of the back of the pickup, while we were moving. hubby killed the truck and jumped out to rescue him. he was crying and got up a little slow and was limping. he had a bloody spot on his back leg. we put him back in the truck and slowly drove to a spot where we could get out and really examine him. he was running a little gingerly on his back leg, but when we poked and squeezed he wasn’t crying. his leg wasn’t gushing blood, no bones were sticking out and nothing was pointing in the wrong direction so we continued up the mountain. I think jaggar just was shocked….a little bruised…but overall he survived.

I think the drive to the trailhead took us longer to get to than the 3.5 mile hike to the lake.

and we’re all off. I warned jacob and liz that I would be taking lots of pictures. they didn’t seem to mind though.

only about a 0.5 mile in and we made it to the wilderness boundary.

photo op!

the trail was a nice moderate trail. very well marked. only a few trees had fallen across the trail.

apparently I didn’t look hard enough at the map to prepare the others for the stream crossing.

ooops. I was okay, because I hiked in my chacos. so I had no problem crossing. the others took shoes and socks off and crossed. it was a little chilly. they spent longer in the water than I did. they had to  strategically place their bare feet on soft rocks. I thought they were going to kill me. but they all made it across just fine.

 

no shoes were lost in the crossing on the river.

after the one stream crossing….I looked at the map…for 2 reasons…1. I was getting blamed that we were going the wrong way and we were lost….thanks BOYS! and 2. to see if we had anymore stream crossings. the answer was yes, but it looked like it was right at the lake.

there were a few boulder fields we walked through. it was a perfect day up there.

and there was another stream crossing, but it was right at the outlet, so we weren’t required to cross.

the lake was a little windy. a little cooler. hubby’s hopes of fishing were dashed pretty quick.

we relaxed, let the dogs play in the water and ate a little lunch at the lake before heading back.

we took more pictures too!

I don’t mind my goofiness….hubby probably does though. blame him…he’s takes pictures at the wrong time! it only enhances the goofiness.

I don’t know if its how the sun and shadows are, but it totally looks like you’re standing on your tip-toes liz. is this true?

it was nice to have someone else to join us not only for the company, but we actually get some good pictures of us!

however, it still didn’t stop us from our self portrait.

soaked, but happy puppies…and see I wasn’t lying. jaggar survived his brush with death fall and the hike just fine.

we survived the 7 mile round trip hike. feet and chacos were plenty dirty….so a very successful day!

we drove out the mountain a different way than we came in, just to see some different parts of the forest, get ice cream, and hopefully not lose a jaggar bean out of the back of the truck.

the pups pretty much laid down the whole ride home.

we got back to town with just enough time to rinse off….but not before this happened….

proof!

we headed out to where they shoot off the fireworks. enjoyed the show and came home and crashed.

when I woke up the next morning to go to work the puppies didn’t even get up. going from sun up to sun down will wear anyone out!

bucking mule falls

the whole original plan was to go camping saturday night and spending the day on the mountain on sunday. only half of that occurred.

the hubby was feeling all pukey so no camping happened. buzz kill!

but we woke up sunday morning feeling much better and escaped to the mountains because I was not digging the idea of 100*.

we only had one place in mind. bucking mule falls.

neither of us had ever been.

getting to the parking area was the easy part.

we were off….on what we thought was the trail. it was an old forest road. I thought I knew where we were headed. don’t worry mom, we had the gps.

the one and only snow pile on the trail. the puppies had a ball playing in it. if it wasn’t for the fact that we were getting eaten alive by wolves we might have stood there all day watching them pounce and play around.

not a cloud in the sky. just a bunch of smoke. if you didn’t know any better you could have sworn our forest was on fire.

we knew we were getting close when we could hear the falls.

so far down there. the whole time hiking in I was thinking we were going to end up at the base of the falls. little do I know….

literally straight down!

so worth the hike though.

the smoke obviously just set into the  valley.

we made sure the kids stayed away from the edge….even though there were a couple times they gave us heart attacks.

we made it happily. and now I know….you don’t end up at the base of the falls, and the “trail” we were on really wasn’t the trail.

I ended up with some pretty sweet backpack sun burn lines.

it was 100+ in sheridan yesterday…and 80+ on the mountain…still so hot.

the puppies found shade when they could…and wasted no time heading back.

yup. this is how yesterday went. I was just happy to be on the mountain!

after we made it back to the parking area we found the ACTUAL trailhead with the REAL trail. no wonder the people we ran into at the overlook looked at us funny when we came from the wrong direction. we now know it makes a loop. I liked walking next to the hubby instead of behind him.

after bucking mule…we head to porcupine  falls. which I have been to before and I knew what we were in for. I tried to warn the hubby. I kept saying…”its straight down in and straight up out!” I give props to the trail crew…because they have done an excellent job improving the trail. its still straight down in and straight up out….just not as tricky.

this was a single track trail, and this is going in.

gorgeous! totally worth the quick trek. puppies even took a dip.

and the way back out. hubby said “holy crap. we have to go up?” yes, babe….up.

I measure my success on the day by the dirtiness of my feet in chacos. that’s dirt. I don’t tan very easily. it was a successful day.

we also measure success by how long it takes the dogs to pass out….0.2 seconds.

mission accomplished.