{And We Think To Ourselves, What a Wonderful.... Yard}

We recently traded in our days of living in a nice, clean, cozy townhouse in Loveland for a new adventure of life in a big, dirty, old house in Fort Collins.  When I say that it is dirty and old, I am not complaining.  These aspects of the house are largely what attracted us to the house and what made it possible for us to afford the house.  From the extremely pet-stained carpets, to the walls filled with holes, to the piles of garbage lying around inside the house, there were plenty of sights and smells to turn away many buyers.  We, however, fell in love with the house the first time we viewed it on a dark, snowy evening with no lights, no power, and no heat (Jim was an amazing--and brave--Realtor).

Our motivation to move from the townhouse that we loved so much to a place in Fort Collins was to be closer to family, move into a better school district, and to have a fenced-in yard for the boys to play in. We have definitely enjoyed the 5 to 10 minute car-rides to the grandparent's houses (vs the 25 to 30 minute rides from Loveland).  

As spring has been "busting out all over," we are continually thankful for our beautiful new yard.  The boys LOVE playing outside and will spend hours at a time exploring, finding bugs, digging in the mud, and enjoying the fresh air.

This is the view up the hill from our back yard, where we can often see two brown horses (Paul loves horses).  We are super close to shopping, Justin's work, and so many things in town, yet at the same time, it feels a little like we live in the country.

A tree fort and a tire swing that the boys are sure to enjoy when they are a little older.

Here is our garden that we just finished planting.  We are excited to enjoy whatever fresh produce that survives!  We planted onions, beets, carrots, peas, brussel sprouts, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, basil, mint, oregano...

Strawberries

Peas                       

Raspberries

With such a large yard, we certainly have plenty of yard care and maintenance to keep us busy.  We have an abundance of weeds growing everywhere, though some of them are especially beautiful.  Paul's favorites are the "yellow flowers" which he picks and brings inside for me.

We feel extremely blessed to be living in our new house and are continually reminded of what a great decision we made to move when we see how happy our boys are here.