Heaps upon Heaps: Easter Weekend

Suburban life is upon us on this glorious Easter weekend. Saturday morning started out with a 9 am neighborhood Easter egg hunt and breakfast pot luck down at the end of the culdesac. There must have been at least 20 or so kids under age 8 and their accompanying parents and grandparents (not all live on the street, but there are probably at least 10 here). Add that to the approximately 60 dozen filled plastic eggs (if you wanted to participate, you were supposed to bring 3 dozen eggs the night before), and you’ve got yourself a party. Although we have no kids and are over the age cut off for the egg hunt (age 12), we had a really good time meeting our new neighbors. There are some new families with young kids as well as some really friendly older families with kids in high school and some with grandkids. Apparently the neighborhood holds two street parties a year: the egg hunt and 4th of July. We were told to wear fire retardant clothing and bring eye protection for that one. Given his history with explosives and the law, maybe July isn’t a good time for Tyler to visit. Or David, for that matter.

The rest of the day was spent in true homeownership style (at least the definition created by Marshall and Mollie). We went to Home Depot, got some blinds and a rake and went to work. I am pleased to announce that, thanks to my very handy husband, we are no longer sporting the mismatched sheets on windows. We now have blinds! At least in the living room. All other rooms will have to wait.

One nice thing about our house is that we have a yard.  One bad thing about our house is that we have a yard.  Today we raked and raked and raked. Since the house has been unoccupied and then covered in snow for the last many months, the poor lawn has a nice layer of pine cones, needles and leaves that have had the added benefit of being compressed by about a foot of snow the entire winter. We made heaps upon heaps of needles, cones and leaves and now have to figure out how to dispose of our heaps. At the moment it looks like our yard has been invaded by lawn-dwelling beavers.

Although there were no eggs in sight for our Easter dinner, Shane, Lucas (our new basement-dwelling renter), Clinton and I enjoyed the feast and then headed out the back gate to our OTHER back yard (the one we DON’T have to mow or rake) and played frisbee until it was too dark. WE LOVE OUR NEW HOME!!!

Life as new homeowners: so far so good.

Well apparently the masses (all relatives, mind you… what an ornery bunch) have spoken and we are now posting an update. The last few months have been filled with skiing, fun company and enjoying life. Oh, and buying a house. About that…

In a rather quick and painless (aside from the whole mortgage thing) turn of events, we closed on our house on leap day and moved into it a week and a half ago. We were hoping that there would be financial advantages to closing on the 29th (like only having to pay insurance and taxes every 4 years, etc.), but apparently that is not the case. We don’t have internet access yet which explains why we haven’t set out to blog about this development yet. More details later since I’m at work right now and am not exactly what we like to call “billable” at the moment.

We love our new house. It is everything we wanted, and it will fill our needs for a very long time. It’s down in Cottonwood Heights, at the mouth of the canyons on a culdesac backing up to a huge park and rec center. It is an older rambler that has been completely gutted within the last year and remodeled with all new flooring, kitchen, bathrooms, windows, finished basement, etc. It’s basically a new house in an established neighborhood with huge trees (slacklining!) and a view. We have tons of room and are anxious to have people over. If you’re thinking about heading out our way, let us know. We still have a few boxes to unpack and could use the help. Just kidding. We wouldn’t do that.

We’ll post a couple more pictures once we’re all moved in and have something a little cuter than old sheets covering the windows. Or maybe when old sheets come back in style. Which ever comes first.