Grandma Kat's Visit

House transformations are always fun (for me), but family time in our home is the most important part of the whole process.  And this week, we got a special visitor!  Grandma Kat completely spoiled our entire family with a Prime Rib dinner, trip to the zoo and watching Abominable in theaters with treats.  Each girl got the special privilege of skipping one day of school for a one-on-one lunch and shopping trip with grandma.  Eden's favorite hobby is shopping so she absolutely loved picking out a few new things.  Cora is completely happy with her hand-me-down clothes so she was most excited about spending time together.  Milan set off shopping with a specific list and they were both happy to have scored high-waisted jeans (with 5 buttons!) and a new winter coat without visiting every store in town.  Indie is still working on her shopping skills, but LOVED seeing grandma every day and they spent a lot of time lining Lincoln Logs out.  Even though grandma's hip was barely recovering from a recent injury, she joined us for soccer games, freezing cross country meets, and treks across the Territorial Prison's Pumpkin Walk.  Plus she was a great sport about last minute home repairs and helping getting our house together for showing.  It was a wonderful visit and we're so grateful grandma left her tropical, comfortable, not -for-sale home to join our chaos.

Before and After

When we bought this house, we submitted a heartfelt letter about how we would love to raise our girls on this land and host their high school graduations in this house.  At the time, we truly meant everything we said.  To make this house more livable for our family, we implemented our Phase 1 Remodel, which included a lot of wallpaper peeling, painting, and learning some new reno skills.  Meanwhile, we dreamed up a Phase 2 Plan for down the road,which would have basically reconfigured the whole thing.  Over the past 13 months, this house has become a great little home for our family.

Just when things were getting comfy and we started unpacking storage boxes from the garage, we decided to switch gears with our life plans.  Dave's boss who initially told us we could buy into the practice and insinuated that the building would be part of the deal changed his mind.  Instead of a partner, he wants to keep associates in that position and reap all the financial rewards (I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, but I'll just keep those to myself.)  Fortunately, we had started looking into other practice opportunities and landed a great deal on the Saratoga practice and building.  We think we'll really love that beautiful little town, but first things first, we are selling this house and hoping to make a nice profit.  It hit the market today, we have our first showing tomorrow morning, and we're looking forward to the next adventure.

Junior High Dance

Milan's first junior high dance was a total blast!  She and Rosie came out here to get ready and snap a few pictures then I dropped them off fashionable late (which ended up being the perfect time because everyone else was showing up too.)  Milan said she had a a blast dancing with her friends and I am so grateful that she is killing it in junior high!  

Eden's Birthday at Vedauwoo

This year was a big one for Eden-bug, double digits!  She spent weeks talking about her birthday plans, but ultimately decided on a shopping day with mom and birthday schindig with friends at Vedauwoo. 

Eden really loves shopping so I let her pick out her gifts again this year.  I'm always a bit surprised about her gifts, and glad that she gets things that make her happy.  We started our date with lunch at Olive Garden, which Eden thought was fancy and yummy.  Next, we went to Target to enjoy the $40 that grandma Kat had gifted her for the store; Eden picked out the Birkenstock-ish sandals of her dreams, a hedgehog squishy, best friend necklaces for Claire, and a farting pig game.  We weren't done there though, because she still had money to spend so we hit up Michaels for glitter glue, a bath  bomb, jewelry kit, and pencil gifts her class. (I'm sure I missed a thing or two, but you get the idea.)

We ended the celebration at Vedauwoo with Claire's family; this is the third year Eden and Claire have celebrated their birthdays together, starting when they turned 3 a day apart.  The girls had a great time with the endless sugar, limited supervision, and giant rocks.  We partied until the sun set then still managed to squeeze in baths on a school night.  Eden was excited to take cinnamon rolls and pencils to school for friends so I'm glad that she was able to enjoy her day without smelling like bonfire :)

We're so grateful for our Eden bug!

Star Valley

To celebrate Dave's 40th birthday, we booked an AirBNB in Pinedale where we slept in the "Navajo" room and listened to a very chatty host.  We initially planned on exploring the area, fishing, boating, and hiking, but our plans changed right before we left.  We started researching a practice opportunity in Afton so took advantage of our proximity to Star Valley to meet with the owners.  It was a lot of driving and exhausting with their high pressure sales tactics and contradicting stories.  The verdict's still out on that life decision.  

The highlights of the trip were playing at Grey's River, exploring South Pass, panning for gold, and of course stopping in Farson for a "big scoop."  Not only once, but twice!