New Home...New Appreciation for a Wonderful Family

We did it...at least for now. Over the past two months, we worked (with significant family assistance) to paint the front and sides of the outside of our house. (The back will have to happen later...maybe in the spring!) The final week, we received some assistance from some Elders who ripped out weeds, dug out stumps, and laid mulch. The transformation has been dramatic, to say the least. There's more work to be done....grass to be grown and plants to add more color...but for now, our house is beautiful!

We could not have done this without the significant help we received from my family: dad (expert painter on hand for minute-by-minute advice in difficult situations); mom (always the chipper helper); Brad (willing to learn new skills and keep the attitude up); Aly (painted the shutters black and then assisted the teacher in me by grading papers and sharpening pencils...can't put pregnant ladies on ladders); and Kyle (quite a work horse....seeking out opportunities to wake up early and head all the way out to our neck of the woods to work hard for little pay). I suppose we could have done it without them, but it wouldn't have been done now, it wouldn't have been done right, and it wouldn't have been as much fun! Thanks guys!

Have no fear....this is a before shot. This is before we got married. This is from Google Street View. You can't even see the house...

Hopefully the next few pictures will show a progression to the final result...

This was a year ago...October 2009. You can definitely see a vast improvement.

A few weeks of hard work...and this is after only 2 weekends of work.

Here it is...all finished!!! Like I said, it still needs some work...grass, bushes, flowers....but for now it is a pretty remarkable transformation.

So...what do you think???