House hopes

We have had our house for sale since May and we are now one week from closing! There have been so many ups and downs with buyers backing out I'm still holding out for it to be official before any celebrations take place. These buyers requested the chickens stay behind so sadly we will be parting ways with our lovely ladies. We are also under contract and set to close on the 23rd of this month on a new house in Heber City. It's 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and sits on 3.5 beautiful acres!! I never thought our hopes and dreams of having land would be coming true so soon, but in 9 days we will be land owners! There is a coop, old milking barn and wood shed on the property as well as some mature fruit trees, including 2 huge apple trees which we should get to harvest from this year! To be honest I'm a little more in love with the land than the smallish house, but its cute and has a good lay out. It has all the upgrades I needed: storage space in the shape of a 2 car garage. That was the biggest problem with our first house so it'll be nice to have a place for everything out of season.

House view from the front (apple tree blossoming this spring)

 View from the back pasture looking toward the house. If you look closely you can make out the barn and house in the distance. The horses might stay if we sign the new contract with the woman who leases the pasture for them. That would be fun until we get some animals of our own.

 Happy Anniversary! We had a little mini anniversary celebration on the 10th because the 11th was a sunday this year. We put the babies down for naps and had a quick lunch a Texas Roadhouse. We had super Yummy food and some good laughs. Thanks Em for watching the little ones so we could slip out. She said they were angels and slept the whole time ;) I love you Nate and hope this coming year is the best one yet. Thanks for all your support and love these past 6 years, I couldn't imagine a happier life!!

Nate is 2 weeks post op from his ACL and meniscus repair. He has 2 more weeks before he can put weight on it so sadly the crutches stay for the next little while. Em is his physical therapist and makes sure he does his exercises. His biggest complaint is the hip pain/exhaustion on his good side from crutching around everywhere and the muscle atrophy in his right leg. He seems to be healing well and hopes to be playing sports again in no time (6 months...) unfortunately the meniscus repair is much more delicate than the normal ACL repair so that makes for an extra long recovery.

I am 38 weeks and 1 day pregnant with our 3rd baby and feeling ready but not ready at the same time. My giant belly makes things uncomfortable but I would really like to be settled, or a least allowed into, our new home before the baby arrives. Momma comes on the 26th after an 8 hour computer training day at work which will be my last day until November 15th when I go back to work. I'm keeping busy packing hospital bags and overnight bags for Chloe and Blain who will be staying with Em and Theron while I'm in the hospital. Due to insurance and my OB I will still be delivering at Utah Valley, so I hope contractions don't come on too fast or strong so I can make it through the canyon ok, assuming she waits that long.

Garden update: we are currently starting to harvest like I've been hoping for all summer. I get a zucchini or 2 or 3 a week, about one cucumber, and plenty of tomatoes for salads, burgers and even one batch of salsa which turned out AMAZING!! note to self I want to grow onions for salsa and maybe a mild hot pepper as well, some cilantro and tomatillos, garlic would be cool too if I can do it. I harvested the rest of the carrots and put them in a roast which Em claims is the best roast she's had. Oh yea, I want to try potatoes next year too, both sweet and regular. The peas are all dried up and the corn was a big flop. They only grew about 2 feet high and gave no corn. The edamame have tiny pods on them but I'm pretty sure we won't get to harvest any before the house sells. It's been fun having so many veggies everytime we go over. I think I would like to do at least 3 cherry tomato plants next year so we can have tons for eating and snacking. A roma tomato plant would be good for sauces and salsa because they are so meaty or maybe try the "heart" or "blood tomato" that a man in our ward suggested, the only problem is they are from Italy... Anyways, thats the garden update :)

Roast with our baby purple and reg. home grown carrots!! I think having a patch to pick small like this throughout the season as well as one we let get big would be fun if we have the space.