Four month Hurricane Part 1: Around the House

Since moving to Hurricane in April, we've been pretty busy.  We are finally getting around to catching up on the blog.  This post will focus mainly on life around the house, projects, etc.  In the next post we will catch up on outings, fun and adventures we've had over the last four months.

Hide and seek is a lot easier for the hiders when the house is full of boxes.

Unpacking was a huge mess.  Good thing we had such great helpers.

The kids had fun collecting all the moving stickers from the boxes and furniture.

When you get tired of carrying the clipboard around.

Some of our boxes got a little squished.

Yay!  Empty boxes means we are making progress.

When you have so many boxes, you might as well decorate some of them.

Caleb loves his new bed!

We had to clean out the shed so we had somewhere to put everything that used to be in our Vernal garage.

Cleaning out the shed meant adding a lot to this disaster.

Several weeks later.  Hooray!
Not perfect, but better!

Several weeks later, it doesn't appear to be a ton better.
Try our spot the difference game.  

Grr.  Who's that tripping over my bridge?

Ok that's enough pictures Paige. 
Seriously, these are getting heavy!  Just paint the wall!

Now for some electrical work.

Almost finished product.  Still some finishing touches left to do.

We've gathered a lot of scrap metal over the past few months.

It's good to have helpers loading the trailer.
We especially loved Caleb's help loading the metal hangars.

We had a lot of paper to take to get shredded too.

When you put a three year old next to a mirror at meal times, food takes a lot longer to get eaten.

The kids decided to make a lemonade stand.

Ok, maybe we will use this already made table.

Ice cream truck!  Forget the lemonade!

Aunt T came to visit and told us a spooky story.
Caleb has demanded a spooky story before bed every night since.

Yay!  We have a little clear space in the basement!

Time to clear completely clear out this side.

It's looking tidier.
New carpet too! (not installed, just laid down)

Shoot.  But now this side is full again.

A few months later, this side is a functional (but less tidy) little family room.

The shed is now useable too!
Yes, that deer head in the corner is still to this day lying there in the corner.  Anyone want one?

Caleb made himself a new car!

The kids have enjoyed the summer time, playing with friends all day!

I guess today was maroon day.

Look at our lovely roses from England.  Brought here by Craig's great great grandfather.
Let's hope we can keep them alive!

May was the time for roses at our house.  We enjoyed having tons of roses for several weeks.

We thought we would share some with Grandma and Grandpa Batty.

"I can see the whole town from here!"
(this is really what he said up there).

Carter got a geography kit for school.

And Jayden got an art kit.
Here she is doing a shibori project.

1, 2, 3, silly face!

"Oh, I'm so embarrassed"

Geiser in the front yard.
Add it to the project list.

Geiser in the back yard.
Add that too.

Our friends drove a long way to come visit us for a few days!

We've found some really cool old stuff around the house.
Can't wait to try this out!

Craig, maybe don't try those out.

Jayden enjoyed trying on all the old glasses.

Craig, please stop trying on the glasses.

This same ice cream scooper was at the Anderson household when Paige was growing up.  So we decided to keep it.

We saw this horizontal tithing slip and said "wow, this must be really old!"
We have never seen any slip different from the current ones.

Then we found another one that looks even older.

We gave away all these empty canning jars.
Assuming all these boxes have 12 jars in them (some have more though), that's over 300 jars.

And no, none of those came from this pile of jars we've decided are too old for us to want to eat.

Or this pile.
That's probably another 300 or more we need to clean and get rid of.

This was the second shelf that had glued on jars caused by some leaky mandarin orange cans.
We decided to just throw the whole shelf out.

Mom was naughty and was taking pictures during family scripture time. 
But they were all so cute together.

Trying to sort out all the office supplies.
Of course, as soon as this project was finished, we found a ton more.

Grammy came over and helped us make "back to school" gifts for our neighbors.
We needed a good way to get rid of all these extra school supplies.

Needles, needles and more needles.

Grammy, I see you have returned already.

Grammy:  "My car broke down." [sad face]
Jayden:  "Yay!"

Caleb's truck broke down too, so he made his own tow truck.

Time to just be silly.

We can walk in this room now!

It's been a while since this fridge had a deep cleaning.

This was our huge wood pile that we planned to get rid of bit by bit with our various dump runs.

Then we found these.
Oh heck no.  It's all going now!

The kids continue to be good helpers.
(reluctant, but good)

Caleb loves being big enough to help.

Flexing his muscles.

We got rid of many logs filled with TONS of cockroach eggs.
Good riddance!

Yay! After several weeks of hard work, it's almost gone!
Craig deserves the credit for almost all the work.

Craig ended up taking 13 trailers of wood to the dump.
The kids did one trailer load all by themselves, for $10 each.  Mom and Dad didn't think they'd really do it.  But they are now $10 richer.

Wow! This drive is so empty.
(Just for the day)
This area was crammed with vehicles when we first moved in.

Time to pause for a cute picture of a boy and his truck.

This camper was hard to get rid of.  We couldn't find anyone to come take it away.  So we loaded it on the back of this truck.  We drove it to the end of the drive way, when the truck's diff locks broke....

We got that figured out, but then the fuel pump died before we could drive it anywhere....

Paige helped Craig with the fuel pump. 
"Hey, I wasn't told I would be getting greasy in this project."

 So then we fixed the fuel pump and finally got the camper to the dump.
(Although just barely.  The truck is smoking now because the valve covers are leaking).

Caleb waiting for the big kids to come back and play with him.

The neighbor kid found this nail with his foot.  The board was completely buried, with the nail sticking straight up out of the dirt.

We wanted to make sure there weren't any other hazards hiding in the yard, so
our neighbor came over and helped us use some metal detectors.
Craig finds, Carter digs.  "Dig boy!  Digging holes turns a bad boy into a good boy."

An old Diet Coke can.

Since we had the detectors out, we figured we would look for treasure in the lawn too.
Jayden was happy to find quite a few coins.

Oh boy Caleb.  I didn't know you could climb.  Get down.

Cutie.

Some projects just get left undone for a long time.
Hopefully it's not too much of a hazard.

It felt like a night for braids.

Howdy

I hear there's been trouble in these parts.

A new entertainment center for a new TV.  Craig is happy.

Caleb doing some school work.

Enough school.  Let's play!

Yeah I wanted to be nice, so I let Mom win.

Caleb and his little buddy.

Sharing a snack in a truck.

When the weeds are taller than you, you know it's time to make them a priority.

Yay! Cousins came to visit!
These kids had too much fun.

What are we going to do with you?

Bath night I guess.

Fixing up the ATVs

Caleb loving a ride.
Carter and Jayden: "Hey wait for us!"

How to we make it go?

Oh we need Daddy.
Let's go!

WAHOO!!!

Craig spending some time in his shell before saying goodbye.

Aww

Caleb and Mommy enjoying ice cream.
"Get back to work Daddy!"

Craig has gone through three pairs of work gloves now. 

Getting ready to say goodbye to our little red truck.

Aww, we loved this truck.

Last time in the truck.

First time in the truck, three years ago.

Our friends will take good care of it.

Craig waited a long time for a truck, and we were blessed to get this one for a bit.

But now it's time for an upgrade.
Bwa ha ha!
(Craig is so excited)

Test drive around the block.
We are still amazed when we look back and see how far back the kids are!

We love it!!

A couple days later, our first trip to the service department.
We had to get some locking lug nuts drilled off because we didn't have a key.

Jayden and Mom loved doing Mom's birthday present-- A 3D puzzle!

If you want to look cool, wear matching sunglasses.

Monsoon season has started, and we have been found unprepared.
The rain was just spilling over the gutters where it wasn't supposed to, flooding the back patio, creeping toward the basement windows.

Turns out the gutters were clogged.

Very clogged.

The leaves were easy enough to deal with.  But then we found the gutters weren't attached properly.

We fixed the gutters, but this area still holds a lot of water when it rains.

Craig tried to trench it out to the street, but the sidewalks are too high.

While mom and dad are dealing with water mitigation in this rainy season.....

The kids were loving it!

Mom, I'm ready for the next flood.

Caleb and Daddy working on a truck together.

Too cute!

Dinner on the porch.
Watch out Jayden, the corn is hot.

These cousins are so cute together!

The neighborhood cats love to hang out in our yard.
There are three orange tabbys in this picture.

Apparently they love the wildlife.

But we absolutely love this little kitten named Popsicle.

At first she was timid around us.

But the kids soon earned her trust.

Kitty cuddles.

It's almost like actually having a pet cat.

She loves us now.

A week or so ago, we found this little bunny hopping around our yard.
When we observed a hawk stalking it, we decided to catch it.

We made a makeshift cage for it for overnight while we tried to figure out who owned it.
The next morning, we had to keep shooing a dog away that was trying to get into the cage.
Luckily we found the owners and it's safe now.

Look at this cute boy.

Caleb smashed his toe with a brick (which we had told him to stop playing with).
He wore himself out crying.

It feels better now, but he lost the toenail.

Paige demanded that before school starts we needed to clear out the stuff in front of the shed door where we keep the bikes.

And it's so nice now!

It's been a busy, busy four months,
but we have developed a new family motto that gives us comfort.