Well here we are again. Since my last post more than a year ago, life has been quite a whirlwind! From getting married, going on adventures together, building a garden wall for the landlord, awkward living situations and to helping her through nursing school, it's been a crazy year and a half.
First, being married has been awesome! We are so happy to have each other. It's the best! That's about as mushy as I'll get right now. You're welcome.
Any chance we get, we try to plan some fun adventure, whether it be driving to a national park or just going on a Sunday drive up a nearby canyon. Back in January, as a delayed Christmas gift, I bought a Federal Lands Pass for us. It's good for one year. So far, we've been to Arches, Canyon Lands, Hovenweep, Yellowstone, Mt. St. Helen's, numerous drives up the Alpine Scenic Loop, and a handful of other little places. We still have a few more months and hopefully we can fit in a trip to Zion, Cedar Breaks or Dinosaur National Monument.
Early this spring, I decided to finish a project that was started by my landlord, in order for us to have a garden this year. The garden we had last year was on the narrow cramped side of the house that was to be a dog run. The backyard was largely unused. So I put forth a lot of hard work, stacking blocks, cutting rebar, and mixing cement. It was also a way to keep our rent low by "earning our stay". The retaining wall is about 4-5 feet tall, includes a nice stairway and has a 90 degree bend before it tapers off into a slope. Above it, I leveled the dirt with a bobcat, shovel and rake. Then planted the best garden I've grown away from home so far. We've been enjoying eating out of it, and it's been so productive that we've been freezing and giving away all that we can so it doesn't go to waste.
This summer the plan was that our landlord and his wife would come up and stay with relatives while finishing an addition to the house that they've been talking about for a long time. However, plans changed with about a weeks notice. They would not be able to stay with relatives and would have to stay here in their house, with us. We had very little options and ultimately chose to stay and weather it out. It's been extremely difficult at times, and frustrating, but we've managed okay so far. And an end is in sight!
With my wife being in nursing school, I've been doing a lot more of cooking meals and cleaning up so that she can have extra time to study. It's been really challenging for her this year, but she amazes me all the time at her abilities. I've kind of enjoyed doing some cooking anyways. It's kind of like when we were dating and anytime we were at my place, I did the cooking for the day.
Now finally as Summer is drawing near unto Autumn, we have made some exciting decisions and will be moving next week. We bought a house! It's in a smaller community about 15 minutes away from where we currently are. The house is a great starter with a huge backyard that it largely undeveloped. We have big plans for what to do with the extra space! And now that it will be our house we can finally do whatever we want! So, starting a couple days ago, our task has been to pack up much of our stuff here and get ready for moving! Luckily we will have a few days to get things all moved over and our landlord will let us come back to check on our garden as well. This is the second most exciting time of our lives to date! (The first being our marriage). I'll continue to update this as time allows and perhaps I'll describe some of the projects that we plan to do with our new place!
