Our new casa

We are officially moved in to our new house! It is so beautiful, and I often walk around and get teary-eyed because I can't believe I actually live here. It is just perfect for my family, and I love feeling settled, knowing we will be here for many, many years. I might also be teary-eyed because I lost my anti-anxiety medication in the move and have been a wee bit nuts. But hey, I'll just pretend all the tears are from gratitude!

I will post some pictures of our crazy week of moving, as soon as I can find my memory card reader in one of the many still-packed boxes. I've made some good progress . . .the upstairs and main level are generally put together . . .but the basement is still in disarray, and I won't even let myself look in the garage at all the stuff that got dumped there. But I'm slowly getting the house put together, and it's been kind of fun. Fun because there's so much more space for all our stuff. Not so fun because it's an awful lot of work, and my kids have a wonderful ability to make messes faster than I can clean them.

Some of my favorite things about the new house:

Oooh, I just got giddy as I thought of all the things I love. Let's see . . .

My large laundry room, with a cute window, lots of storage space and a brand-new washer and dryer that SING to me! Every time I hear a tune coming from the laundry room, I giggle.

All the bedrooms for my kids, and extra room in all their closets.

The ceiling in my bedroom. It's a tray ceiling, and has this super cool light that accentuates the different levels.

My enormous closet. It's been so fun to organize all my junk!

The shower in my bathroom. I feel like I'm in a fancy spa every time I get in there. I can even sit on the stone bench to shave my legs!

The pantry and all the storage room in the kitchen.

My new fancy black refrigerator, with a working water and ice machine. Hopefully the water line won't leak on this fridge, because we've dealt with fridge flooding in our last two houses.

The garage space!

The yard is so big and pretty! Ryan and I stand on the back deck at night and just stare at the beautiful yard and neighborhood.

The entryway staircase, with the pretty carpet, wood on the sides, and rod-iron railings.

The loft area, where my kids have an art center and reading corner.

The tall ceilings on the whole main level. The entryway has a 20-foot ceiling, but the rest of the level has extra-tall ceilings too.

The paint in most of the areas is very pretty. There are some areas I will change, but it's nice to not be annoyed by any of the paint colors.

All the wall space, just waiting to be decorated.

The tall, glass french doors in the office.

The beautiful ceilings in the dining room. And the wall color matches my decor perfectly.

And so many more, that I can't possibly write them all!

Some of the issues we've had:

After living in the house for nearly a week, a man knocked on the door and said he was the "sewer guy" for the neighborhood, and wondered if we realized the sewer had been turned off when the house was vacated a year ago. Yuck. So we got the sewer working again.

We were informed that the pretty rock wall in the backyard fell down about 6 months ago, because it wasn't built correctly. The bank had someone build the wall back up, but we're pretty sure it's still not sturdy. Children have now been banned from playing near it until we have it looked at.

We had many guys from our ward show up to help move the furniture over to the new house, but we had them all go home at 10:30 p.m. The only item not put in the new house was the piano, which had been brought over in the truck, unloaded and left on the driveway until we could figure out the best way to get it in the basement. Unfortunately, the next day there was a huge rainstorm and the piano did not survive. The poor thing turned green and all the keys have been falling off. A new piano is not in the current budget, so Brevan's piano lessons may need to be postponed for a while.

There is a slight mildewy smell in the basement, and we noticed that the carpet had once been pulled up in a corner of Brevan's bedroom in the basement. We're wondering if there was a water leak. We have to pay a professional to come look at it and give us advice.

So there are negatives to purchasing a foreclosure, but we feel like we got such a good deal that the goods out way the bads!

We are LOVING our new house!