Improvements

We got new couches! They're an improvement over our old couches that were free. Our last couches my boss gave us after we helped him move and he decided his old couches didn't look nice enough for his new house. We appreciated those couches but are most excited to have these new ones which are the result of a yard sale.
Yea for yard sales! Ben and I have found BYU students often buy furniture and other items several months before they graduate and plan to take it with them, they then get prices on moving vans, realize how expensive it is and have yard sales where you can get their pretty new stuff for cheap. As a result April is a good month for us. More yard sale goodness...

We found the patio table at a yard sale brought it home and then found cheap chairs at Home depot and while we were their found this grill. We now have a patio set, woohoo! We christened the grill two weekends ago and invited over our married friends from American Fork, Mike and Chelsi. We had steak, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, and root beer floats, you know you're jealous.

A few months ago we finally bought a lawnmower. We would have bought one last year but we had just bought a house and so most of our money went to a down payment. Also the lawn was dead when we moved in so we thought we'd wait until spring to work on the lawn. It's an electric mower because, one, I hear gas mowers are hard to get the right mixture for oil and gas and two,they smell. This mower you plug in using an extension cord and it feels a little like you're vacuuming your lawn but it's entertaining to me. Maybe that will change when I've used it more than three or four times. I also thought it was cute, Ben heard me say this and he said if I called it cute I would be the one mowing and his prediction came true. Ben mowing: 1 Dara mowing:3.

I said I would post pictures when the windows were done. And I didn't but I am now. I blame it on the fact the weather was really nice and then it snowed and I didn't want to go outside to take pictures. Oh well here goes:

Here is the outside of our house after. I LOVE the new windows. And they make a huge difference with the temperature inside our home. They also look nicer than the aluminum frames from the seventies and we can't hear the kids playing in the cul-de-sac anymore. Just for comparison, although you can't tell as much from far away, is the house with the old windows.



Here is the close up so you can see the beautiful new clean windows and we have screens!

On a side note this window is so clean I came running down stairs a few weeks ago because I heard a loud bang at about 7 am when I was getting ready for work. I came down to investigate and found a bird, it's head twisted to the side, sitting outside the window. I was terrified it was dead so I asked Ben to go check. He naturally was tired and still in bed and refused. So I bugged him. He wanted to let the cats out and let them investigate but I did not want parts of a bird, feathers or otherwise, all over the front yard/porch. Ben eventually came down and looked out the window. He said the bird was not dead because he could see it blinking, then he went back to bed. The bird did not move and by the time I left for work it was slowly regaining movement. I talked and encouraged him and eventually I got to close for comfort and it shook it's head, looked at me, spread it's wings, and flew away. I'm pretty sure it was in shock so I hope it didn't land on a branch, then fall out again once it froze up from shock and it's likely concussion. I envisioned this happening my entire time at work that day.


And from inside you can see the pretty window again and...our pretty new couches.
Next up we may be having an open house... a few months late.