Farewell to our Beautiful First Home

When we first talked about moving it made me cry.  

We had a beautiful home that had served us well for 6 years.  It was an absolute miracle that we got into it in the first place.  Colt's Dad saw his neighbors moving out of their house and went over to ask about it.  We got a call that it might be available and to come and see.  We walked through it with the realtor and that night asked each "Do you think we could actually get that?"  We put earnest money down first thing the next morning.

It was amazing that we qualified for financing - of course this was back in the day when if you had a heartbeat and some income they would consider you.  We were self employed for only 1 year in a commission-based business and had nothing to put down.  We had just started our insurance business and River was a 2 month old baby - but living in a studio apartment, we were wanting something a bit bigger.

We felt very blessed and very thankful when they called to say that it was ours!  It was a modest home that we got for a very good price and had low monthly payments.  Exactly what we needed.

So when we thought about moving....it made me cry.

6 years of being a stay-at-home mom here....lots of memories....lots of projects done together outside and in.......3 babies and toddlers and little girls......

As we talked about it, I knew that it was right for us to move on, so we embraced it and made it a grand adventure.  But before I show you our adventure, lets take one last walk through our beautiful 1st home:

It was a good house to us. 

So on to the new:

Definitely a fixer-upper!!

Colt has a FABULOUS gift of being able to see things as they can be...not as they are.

I got overwhelmed at what it was...and all the work that went into it.  Colt juts rolled up his sleeves and went to work.  We followed his lead and had such a great and grand adventure working as a family on this house.  

We spent 6 months working on this house before me moved in.

The number one, absolutely must-do first thing was to get rid of the foxtails and plant a flowerbed.  

Silver with Daddy in the BobCat.

It was really cute, Silver was SO excited to get her turn in the Cat with Daddy.

As they were going along, Colt realized that Silver had fallen asleep!

River and Daddy

Somehow I don't have Summer's picture with Daddy, but she got in there too and had such a great time.

I moved over some of my flowers from the old house - a small rose bush and some of my irisis.

I would like to try starting rose bushes from starts of my old bushes come Spring.

We actually moved just across the way, and Sam still finds his way to our house occasionally.

 Big helpers helping Mom move the iris.

We did lots of work, and the kids pitched in amazingly well.  They took ownership of the new home and rolled up their sleeves to help out.  They also had a lot of fun.  

Here are all the cousins:

Summer, River, Silver, Rain, Mesa, Echo and Judd

Silver the Monkey climbing up the mattress.

It took her quite a few tries over several days to master this, but she has an amazing will and determination.  She is also very coordinated and athletic and can figure things out!

...to be continued