Finally, HOME!!

Well, we've been in the house just under a week and it's finally HOME to us!!! We've been working our tails off cleaning it, unpacking, decorating, and cleaning again!!! I look forward to NOT moving for a while...
Some pictures...

The yard in front had a TON of weeds, most were bigger than Josh. It just took us a morning to get them cleared out, and realize we need new grass. It will be super cheap to just get some sod for the small patch in front, so we'll probably do that sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Please pay no attention to my nekkid boy at the table... there was an incident involving a fall in the back yard with a chocolate ice cream cone. We figured it would be a waste to get him dressed again. So here he sits in his unders.

Backyard: If you can, imagine the cracks in the brick patio filled with WEEDS. Killer weeds. seriously, we could barely walk out there- but Tyler cleaned them all out! Now we just need to figure out what to do with the yard itself.

"Dog Run." Or, "Evil Crawl." Whatever. Evil loves his new home, it's plenty big for him with lots of bugs for him to chase after. Josh always makes sure though, that we make time to feed him some super worms. Or, as he calls them "crazy strong wormies."

Here's a good picture of Evil. Ty took this one this afternoon. He's become a loved family member. In fact, Debi (a dear friend of mine) told me that when she raised box turtles she learned that if you rub their back feet when you hold them, they become familiar with your touch and they become more comfortable with you. Well, I put this to the test the other night. I got him out, sat down on the patio and just rubbed his feet for about an hour. Towards the end, he was putty in my hands! He was totally relaxed, with his legs just hanging- and he even let me rub his front feet!!! He didn't even snap at me!!! ...what a good boy... maybe he's not so evil, after all.

As for the upstairs, we're still working on the decorations. That will have to be another post.

We're looking forward to all of you coming to visit!!!

Meet Evil.

An Ornate Box Turtle.

Tyler spotted him on the side of the road on our way back from Sterling 4th of July weekend.
We figured it was too dangerous to leave him there, so I asked Tyler if he wanted to just take him home and we'd clean him up and take him over to Palmer lake the next day. He agreed that was a good idea.

The turtle looked pretty happy about it too... Notice his smile.

Of course, that was right before he tried to bite off Ty's finger. We took him home anyway.

Meet Alex. He's a friend of ours, we took him up to Sterling with us. He has a brother up there that he hadn't seen in a while, so we thought since we were headed up anyway- we'd just take him along. He added lots of laughs to the 3+ hour car ride.

This is when we told Alex we were actually going to take the turtle home with us. He kinda thinks we're nuts. But hey, he's the one who bought a plant at the Sterling Walmart to bring back with him.. I'm just sayin'...

It worked out well though.

Now, this is when he got his name. He kept trying to do flips in my hands to get away from me. He was being CRAZY! So- I named him Evil... as in Evil Knievel. Little did I know it would be so fitting.

Now that it's about a week later, Josh and Ty are both in love with him. Especially because he's an omnivore, and it's SO much fun to watch him eat super worms. It looks like Evil is now officially part of the Adams Family.

I figure it'll work out ok, I've been asking Ty when I could get a dog- since we'll have a backyard starting Wednesday. Ty laughs every time I bring it up- so this is a close second, I guess. Evil will be an outside turtle. He'll be free to roam around the backyard, eating all the bugs he wants. I'm sure my garden will probably be a big part of his diet as well, I'll just have to get over that.

As his name implies, he's not the friendliest turtle I've ever met.. but Josh is VERY good with him- It actually surprised me. He's definitely his father's son.

Here's Evil, nice and clean after a dip in the sink.

And this is a picture I took of Tyler trying to show me a June Bug. I had never seen one before, but it flew away just as I snapped the picture. bummer.

In other news:

We got the house! Also, the appraisal was done this week and came back perfectly!
Looks like there's nothing in our way to close on the 15th (ONLY 6 DAYS AWAY) and MOVE IN!!!!
Needless to say, I'm SO excited!!!

***Only one small thing... the dishwasher in the house is broken... (I guess in the last year that it's been vacant, someone turned it on when there was no water hooked up to it...) so that'll suck having to wash all the dishes by hand for the first little while... No one has one just layin' around they'd like to give us, do they?? ;)

Anyway- I'll be taking pictures and posting them of our new home shortly!!!! So stay tuned!!!!

4th of July FUN

Tyler and Brian setting off a bunch of fire crackers.. the kids loved watching them.

Me, mom and dad

Jimmy's neighbors had a bunch of little *kittens that were running all over the place. Josh LOVED it!

Josh, Anakin, Chloe and Owen watching fireworks. Josh sure loves his cousins.

And back at the hotel, Nana found a FROG! Josh and Ty couldn't have been happier!

Josh said, "It squeaks when I squish it!" lol poor *frog....

*No frogs or kittens were harmed in the taking of these pictures.