Grandpa Lewis

 Grandpa Lewis came to visit

 in the middle of his cross-country move from Virginia to Utah.

He arrived bearing books galore for the girls that were from his childhood years.

They were so excited and started reading the books right away...

I am excited that the books are filled with appropriate, character building material!

It was really fun to take Grandpa to the new house. 

He was so excited to see every nook and cranny and congratulated

 us several times on the accomplishment. 

We spent one full day running errands for the house 

and found ourselves back at the home three times that day.

Grandpa also sat in on Brinley, Avery AND Aspen's Irish dance classes...

that's three hours of Irish dance. They were tickled pink to have him there!

Grandpa is now on his way to Utah.

Thanks for coming to visit us, we love you!

Thanksgiving

 We were invited to have Thanksgiving dinner at the Kuehnl's home.

We have been lucky to enjoy numerous tasty meals with these friends.

 

We were joined by the Hancock family and sister missionaries as well.

The food was delicious and the company even better!

What would a friend gathering be like without some costume playtime?

 

Brinley and Emily have grown too big for little kid play, 

so instead of dress-ups after dinner they hung around the adults.

Sister missionaries.

 

 Cody and Emily made these cute rice treat turkey legs for kids dessert, 

while the rest of us enjoyed a smattering of pies.

Thanks Kuehnl family for fun Thanksgiving feast!

Happy Birthday

Our Daddy/husband/hero turned 37 last month.

He is selfless, hard-working, honest, kind, humble 

and the very best thing that ever happened to me.

I sent him to pick this up from Whole Food's on his special day... he didn't complain.

Happy Birthday Darling!

Almost

We're nearing the end!

Home delivery date is between Dec. 25th-Jan. 1st. 

We have learned a lot throughout this process. 

If you plan to build a home anytime soon we're happy 

to offer up a few...or a LOT of lessons we have learned.

 

Weekend Trip

 Last week I was able to head to San Antinio Texas for a girls weekend with 

my best friend PAIGE.

We spent a few G L O R I O U S days together, just the two of us.

We stayed at a hotel that was situated right along the Riverwalk.

 

 (image complements of a google search)

Our days were filled with conversation, but we also managed to fit in many fun activities like:

1) A trip to the Alamo, located across the street from our hotel.

2) A visit to some amazing caves!

3) Eating local cuisine.

 4) More eating.

5) Sitting by the pool in the sunshine in NOVEMBER.

Beautiful legs compliments of Paige!

 6) Watching a Veterans Day Parade...in the sun.

7) A super fun segway tour of the city.

 

 8) A riverboat ride.

 9) A trip to the big outdoor Mexican Marketplace.

When we were children our families took a trip to Mexico together. On that trip Paige and I punctured our heals and became "blood sisters."  

 I could not have asked for a better blood sister and I cannot wait to spend time with her again!

 

Never Knew

 What I never knew was 

what it took to build a custom home from start to finish...

well I still don't know because we are not finished.

W H E W 

We are grateful, we are exhausted, 

we are ready for this chapter of our lives to be behind us.

Although countless "on-site" changes have taken place, from moving walls to adding corbels, from lighting and outlets placement changes to minimizing office built-in shelving depth...

Here are a few changes that are more obvious from the outside elevation:

1) Stone previously ended before "returns" on either side of the front...

NOW, the hardy plank has been removed, new Tyvek installed and both side returns are stoned.

2) We originally painted the outside blue, which looked terrible and did NOT work.

NOW the outside in a very dark brown. This decision took our builder, painter, project manager and myself an incredible amount of time, in the freezing cold with paint swatches held up to the front stone, in addition to test run paintings, to finalize.

In this picture you can see the two different colors. Thankfully the blue is completely gone now.

Here is Joe, our head carpenter, who happens to be incredibly talented, working on our fireplace mantle. I gave him a picture of what I wanted and he made it happen! 

The trim carpenters have now

 finished up their work, packed up and moved out. 

Up this week:

The entire interior is a paint zone. 

All the moldings, built-ins, staircases, lockers, rooms, doors and trim are being painted.

We are also having a built-in trampoline space created. They came and picked up the tramp from our home yesterday, in the deep snow, to move along with this project.

 

Our landscaping was on the schedule to go in this week,  

but due to the recent snow storm and a high of

19 degrees today, our window for this project may have passed and will

 most likely need to wait until spring.

 

 The children have been to the house too many times to even count, although not as many times as their parents. Every time Reese is there  

she likes to visit her room (that she will share with Aspen) and do a happy dance.

I am headed up there again in the morning, with the little girls, for a  

two meetings and to bring the workers doughnuts.

The countdown is on, we are six weeks away from moving in!

First Season

 We have a great local children's theater downtown 

and have been taking the children to performances there for years. 

 

 Reese is finally old enough to sit still through the performances without distracting other spectators. She is two shows into the season and has really enjoyed the plays thus far.

After each production the children are able to  

meet and obtain autographs from the actors. 

Here Avery is teaching Reese the ropes and encouraging her not to be scared as

 she gets her first few autographs.

 I'm thankful that my Mom took us to countless local theater productions throughout my childhood because I developed an appreciation and absolute LOVE for live theater. 

We hope that our children will similarly develop a life-long love of theater!

Halloween

For Halloween Avery was a Elphaba, Brinley was Dorthy,

Aspen was Glinda and Reese was a poodle 

(the same thing that each of her older sisters have been in years past).

We were ever so thankful that it was not pouring rain for trick or treat like it was last year.

Where we live 'trick or treat' does not actually happen on Halloween night, 

this year it took place the night prior. 

They designate a two hour block of time, from 6-8pm and I love the city for this! 

Please excuse the birthday suit on Aspen, this is the only picture I snapped of the girls participating in the candy trading aftermath, their favorite part!

They were each able to choose 30 pieces to keep, which I would say is rather generous, and the rest was packaged up to send to our troops...but when I took the package to mail it and found out that the shipping cost was FAR more expensive than the candy inside, we ended up donating it to Brinley's math teacher who apparently rewards children with candy?!!

Warrior Dash

 Recently Avery participated in the 

Warrior Dash

at her school.

This is a MUDDY obstacle course and loads of fun for the kids.

It was so FREEZING cold that SEPTEMBER day that Cody braved the weather to support Avery while the little girls froze in the car, away from the wind, and I took care of things on the home front.

 

The weather didn't bother Avery one bit. 

She decided to go through the course a second time!

Update

 A peek into our lives via cell phone pictures:

The end.