4 years and going strong

Today is our 4 year anniversary! I can't believe it's already been 4 years. Time has flown by and much has changed since 4 years ago, one being 4 years older- Yikes! Anyway, these past four years have been awesome not just relationship wise by spiritually too. We are so much stronger now than we were 4 years ago. I can't imagine what 50 years will be like. We look forward to the years to come and growing much older with each other. Okay, that's all the sappiness I'm going to publish on this blog.

Picture taken on Easter

Before pictures

The time has finally come! Many hours of blood, sweat and tears we can reveal the before and after pictures. The formatting doesn't allow for them to be side by side. Enjoy! Sarah and Alan

After

Pine Mountain Club pictures

Here are some pictures of the golf course in town and the sunset from the house.

Woodland listing!

Yes, that's true! We will have a listing for the Woodland house by this Friday. We will also be having an open house this Saturday and Sunday. Pine Mountain Club is having a lilac festival with all kinds of fun things going on including helicopter rides over the mountain community. There is an expected 12,000 visitor turn out for this event. Great weekend for the open house. Anybody want to come up and visit? The contractors will be done this Wednesday and then all we have to do is little touch ups here and there on Friday night. I'm waiting to take pictures so that you can get the full effect of the new house. It looks amazing! On Saturday when we worked a 12 hour shift I saw cars stop in front of the house to check out the new look. People are very interested to see what's going on and to see the change since it's been run down for so many years. Anyway, I'll post the before and after pictures as soon as I get a chance.

A sweet and sour experience

Imagine you were a first grader and this happened to you...

One of my favorite parts of the first grade school year is the spring and all the fun projects we get to do during the spring time. One of them being the life cycle of the butterfly. The week after spring break I always get an order of caterpillar larva delivered to school so my class can watch the butterfly lifecycle first hand. Each caterpillar comes in a little cup which I number so they can get their own personal caterpillar to watch grow and journal about. I always preface this unit by telling the kids that some of them are going to die along the way. It's just the nature of insects and that not all of them will turn into butterflies. The kids usually respond well and if theirs does die they are okay with it. This year I had none die, a first I must say. The kids loved journaling about how the caterpillars grew so big and then turned into it's crysalis' and then how they had to wait and wait until they came out. Monday they started coming out of their crysalis' and by Tuesday they had all came out. The kids have been so eager to get into the classroom each morning to check up on their precious little babies.

Today we went to go let them go free in nature where they need to be. They kids were sad when I told them it was time to let them go free, but a little happy knowing they are going where they needed to be. We walked out to our new reading garden on the playground, remembered the lifecycle of the butterflies and said our goodbye's. I then opened the cage to let them fly free. They started flying up in the air and out to nearby flowers. It was a great moment to see them all come out of the cage and be set free. The kids were so excited. But then.....


The kids froze to their horror as one kid pointed past me and screamed out, "THE BIRD!!" I turned around to see a big black bird standing behind me munching on one of our precious butterflies. It stood there mocking us as the wings of the butterfly were sticking out on each side of its beak. The kids instantly threw a protest. "That's so sick!" one kid said. "You mean bird!" one yelled. "I think that one was mine" another moaned.

I stood in horror thinking is this really happening. I felt so bad that they had to experience such a sad part of nature. I mean of course the bird is going to eat whatever is smaller than it, but why did it have to be in the garden right then. I didn't see it when we walked up. Instantly, I thought this has to go on the blog because the kids faces were hilarious as we experienced this tragedy of life. I had to hold myself from laughing at the irony of the whole thing. I can only imagine what kind of impact this might play in their lives. Hopefully they won't dislike birds forever.

You look like a hippy

We had to shave Alan's head Sunday night. Here is what it looked like after shaving it Sunday. He was told that he has too much hair and that he looked like a hippy, so he'd better shave it again. At the bottom is Alan's head shaved again at a zero. You can't get less hair than that unless you razor it all off. Anyway, we wanted to share his new do.

Some people have farmer's tans. Alan has a hair tan.

Landscaping pictures

Here are some pictures of the Landscaping Alan did on Friday. It's hard to get pictures of it all at once. All that's left with the landscaping is time for grass to grow and finishing touches(plant flowers, weedwack the front of the hill, put in flag stone and some more woodchips). We're going to put the house on the market before the grass grows, it'll take too long to wait. You can only do so much on a huge hill like this one. We put in lots of wood chips to liven up the hills and walkway and ground plants like finca and rosemary- they can withhold the freezing temperatures in the winter. We attempted to cover up the propane tank with some new bushes, but as of now they are too little to cover it up. We may have to rethink this idea or really advertise that they will grow and will cover up the propane tank box.