We sold our house!

We worked all summer to get our house on the market before we left for Yellowstone at the end of July.  We rented a storage unit and took what seemed like endless trips to a storage unit to de-clutter everything.  We moved everything in our house with either our van or my dad's truck.  I  had a flower area in the front but we ended up expanding it which looked much nicer.  We should have taken before and after pictures of the inside.  We didn't do major painting or anything, but we did major de-cluttering.  We took so much stuff out of the house.  We sold stuff on Craigslist and gave stuff away.  

We didn't change anything in the entry way, we just removed the rug.

We took out Andrew's bed and dresser, this bed is the stagers.  The Ikea storage unit stayed in place.

This was Grant's room, but we made it into an office.  His bed and dresser were removed and we just left the desk.  This was one of the reasons we needed to move - more space.  This was a combo office/Grant's room which meant that it was mostly just cramped and messy all of the time.

In Claire's room we also removed her bed and dresser.  

We finally put up curtains for our closet!

In the family room we removed almost all of our furniture.  Our sofas are really bad.

No changes in the kitchen.  

We installed a new tile floor and a new vanity while the kids were in Texas in June.

No changes in the master bath.  We also put in all new doors in the house.  They looked so much better - we should have done it a long time ago.

We just tidied up the back yard and painted some trim on the back of the house.  We sold our house in four days which was amazing.  We signed all of the papers electronically while we were on vacation.  Our house was scheduled to close the week after school started so we still had to finish moving the rest of our stuff at night.  

The first day of school

The Friday before school started they posted the list of students and their teachers.  Andrew got Mrs. Rizzi.  Claire got Miss Maragoni, who as it turns out is a first time teacher.  They did the lists by the kids last names instead of by teacher, so it was really hard to see if their friends were in their classes.

Claire on the first day of second grade. She didn't want me to do much to her hair.

Andrew on the first day of 5th grade.  

Grant wanted to join in the action.  I didn't get a picture of it, but Grant started at a new preschool after we got back from vacation in August.  We wanted more of a preschool setting rather than just day care.  As it turns out, his friend Jayden also joined us at the preschool.  It is a bit farther away from our house but it is a great environment and a great price.

This picture came out blurry but here is Claire at her desk on the first day.

Here is the front of her classroom.

Danny was with Andrew in line, but this is the only picture he got, nothing in the classroom!

Our week in Utah part 2

While we were in Utah we went to see our friends the Ericksens.  We went swimming at their neighborhood pool and had shaved ice.  The kids picked up right where they left off last summer. They didn't want to leave but luckily we will probably be visiting Utah more and will see them more often.

We went with Natalie so that she could join her neighborhood recreation center.  This place was amazing!  It has all sorts of indoor activities like a gym, basketball and and an awesome swim center.  There were big and small water slides, diving boards, a lazy river and other fun stuff for the kids to do.

They likes this obstacle course.  It was harder than it looked.

Andrew was the only one who went off the high dive.

Grant and Danny in the lazy river.

The little kid area is behind them in this picture.  Grant did the orange water slide in the background over and over.

I went down the blue waterslide with Andrew and Claire a few times, it was really fun.  The kids were really tired after this visit, but I wish they had something like this here.  It was so much fun.

Claire snuggling with Mateo.

We left on Saturday morning to drive home, but not before one last picture and hugs.  We stopped for lunch in Elko and ended up seeing some friends from San Jose.  The drive was fine except for the part from Reno home.  Everyone was done and couldn't agree on a movie.  Overall, it was a great trip and it is always nice to spend time with family.