This is Nathan's dad's horse Gwennie. She is staying with us for a while.
We decided that we couldn't be running all over everywhere this summer. The past few years, Jo has done soccer, but last year she turned 8 and is now old enough for 4H. We told her that she needed to decide what she wanted to do. She decided to do 4H with horses. A guy in our ward is the leader and she is already learning a lot. We haven't had horses for a while and decided to get a horse for Jo. Nathan's brother knew someone who was thinning down their herd, so Nathan went to look at horses. Their horses weren't very old, or very seasoned, but they had two that we thought might work. Jo decided to get the less seasoned one that they wanted less for. We found out that it hadn't been named, yet. When Jo was little, that same brother had given Jo a HUGE stuffed horse that he had won at a carnival. She would ride it all over the house. It was as big as she was. She named it Short for Short. We never have been able to figure out where the name came from, but she loved it. She was so sad when all the stuffing finally came out and we had to throw it away. Nathan and I always talked about how we should name a real horse Short for Short one day. So, we've named Jo's new 4H horse Short for Short.
Here he is (in the front).
Then, Nathan had a trailer that he was trying to sell. One of his vendors at work told him that he wanted the trailer, but all he had for trade was a horse. Nathan was great with that. It was Nathan's understanding that the horse was a 3 year old gelding. When he went to pick up the horse, it was really a 2 year old filly. Suprise!! She too didn't have a name. Zoey came up with Sally and it stuck.
Introducing Sally.
Nathan has always been partial to dapple grey horses. When he went to go check out horses for Jo, a different horse caught his eye. He kept trying to talk himself out of the horse, but it was meant to be. He is a beautiful horse and he's very good. He is not as trained as Shorty, but very gentle and calm. Zoey and Owen have both been on him and he's great. He also didn't have a name and we (Nathan) came up with Car Mel Dapple.
We usually just call him Mel.
Here is another shot of Mel and Shorty. Mel is definitely the top followed by Shorty, Gwennie, and finally Sally. 
Here is another shot of Mel and Shorty. Mel is definitely the top followed by Shorty, Gwennie, and finally Sally. I am very impressed with both Jo and Shorty. As I said, Shorty is not seasoned. I don't think he'd been ridden for a year before he came here. Nathan's brother rode him when he first got here and said that he'd need some work before she could ride him for 4H. A few days later, another brother rode him on a trail ride and had a few little issues with him. Nathan had a hard time getting him to go through 10 ft. gates, but there wasn't anything glaringly wrong with him. A little less than a week after we got the horses, Jo was finally able to get up on Shorty. I was pretty nervous. I knew she hadn't been on horses a ton, but Nathan's brother had worked with her some last year and said that she had natural ability. A few minutes after Jo got up on Shorty, Nathan called on his cell phone to tell me that they were made for each other. Shorty was listening to her better than anyone else. I looked out and Jo rode Shorty through a 3 ft. gate. They both definitely have some work to do, but they are both young and it looks like they will be able to grow up together.
When I was out taking pictures of the horses, the other animals kept trying to get my attention. So, I decided to show them off as well. Mostly, this is for my sister and her kids. I love that they love my animals. But, feel free to look as well.
Abbie - she's really growing up.
Gus - he's dying to go chase the horses.
Black Shadow - unless Nathan's calling him, then it's Stupid Cat!
And, the chickens
with Pink Snake (the rooster) out in the run.
Black Shadow - unless Nathan's calling him, then it's Stupid Cat!And, the chickenswith Pink Snake (the rooster) out in the run.So, that's what's happening here at our house. Even without lambs we have plenty happening with our animals.
And another view of the storage room. This view is me standing in the storage room, looking back to behind the door. Other than the leaking, I am loving this storage room. It is COLD!! Even when it's been warm outside, this room stays nice and cool. I might end up moving my bed down here in the summer.
This view is from my family room looking down into the remodel. Sorry it's so dark.
This is the playroom and new storage room door looking from the new doorway going into the washroom. My sister's husband came down and helped frame a bunch. The square off to the right is going to be some shelves. My idea for decorating the storage room is to have my kids decorate it. They always bring home such cute art projects from school and the library, but I don't have the room to display them. I'm going to hang a rope up around the room to display the flat things with clothespins, but the shelves are going to be for the 3D projects. The kids are SO excited to help me decorate. They are already bringing stuff home to show me so it can go up in the playroom. You can also see our wiggle cars. The kids are excited that we had to clean out the basement. They have been riding the wiggle cars ALL OVER.
This is looking from the storage room door towards the washroom door and the salon door. The new furnace is off to the left and back in the back you can see our new water heater in it's final resting place in the new utility closet. You can also see all of our new ducts. I'm SO excited to have our house uniformly warm.
Sorry about the brightness of the picture. The sun finally decided to show itself today. This is looking from the salon door from the house into the salon.
And this is towards the salon door to outside and the window. Off to the right, you can kind of see the new salon wall.
Here is standing in the new bathroom looking towards the new furnace. As they promised, it is WAY smaller than the old one, but with all the ducting, it seems about as big. It is a lot quieter and my house is heating more evenly though, so I'm happy.
Once again, the storage room is full because we needed to store stuff. Next week this should be full of sheetrock, so once again, we will be moving stuff all around and it will look totally different.
Here is looking into the new bathroom. The tub is set and, once we get the valve in place, we could probably use it, but we don't have any walls or a door. Next to the tub on the floor is where the toilet is going to be and next to that on the wall is the drain for the sink. You can also see the pretty red and blue water lines that Nathan and a guy from our ward put in a few weeks ago.
Here is a close up of where the salon sink will eventually go.
And where the washer and dryer will be. Hopefully I will actually be able to use them next week. But, I've been hoping to use them for a few weeks now, but every week finds me at the laundry mat again. We are supposed to get our plumbing inspected today so we can get everything hooked up and working.
Here's our new manifold. I love having pressure at all of my faucets. I think they did a great job!
A close up of the utility closet. Well and sewage pumps off to the right with the manifold above them. Then there's the pressure tank, water softener and storage tank, and the water heater. Back in the back corner is the bucket that is going to hold our sub water pump.
A more expanded view of the utility closet. Off to the right is the beginning of the wall to the bathroom.
And here is why we had to clear out the basement, and why you can see dust all over EVERYTHING in all of the pictures. We had someone come in and sand and etch our floor this week. Our plan is to have a concrete overlay put over the concrete in the playroom, salon, and bathroom, and stain it. We're also having the countertops in the salon done with stained concrete to coordinate with the floors.
Here is another view of the floor right outside the bathroom. In the bottom left corner, you can see the concrete that wasn't sanded or etched. I'm excited about it, but it was pretty messy this week. I'll be cleaning up dust for a long while.
I also had to get all of my toys out of downstairs. So, while I had them in the family room, I decided to organize them. Now the kids can get out one bin at a time and play with it. They've been doing pretty good. I'm hoping to trim down the toys as I see which toys the kids are playing with and which toys just keep getting pushed aside to get to the ones they want to play with.
Here is our new breaker box. It's a good thing that we have breakers. Just a week after we got them, Nathan was drilling a hole into the attic and ended up drilling through a huge electric wire going out to the garage. It wasn't fun, but it would have been worse if we had had our oversized fuzes instead of our breakers. 
Not only do we have a breaker box outside, but we now have a subpanel downstairs. We are excited to be able to re-do a lot of our electrical and get stuff grounded. Our plan is to do everything we can reach now and then, as we remodel other things, re-do everything else.
Here is the outside of our house. We re-planted our lilac bush a few weeks ago. It's really starting to seem like a yard again. Now if I could just get a sidewalk and steps going up to the new porch. Every time they plan for it, it decides to rain or snow.
And here's my sorry excuse for a lawn. I should just be happy that we had some grass grow up through the dirt. The concrete guys left TONS of rocks in our front yard. The first day I worked out there, I pulled out 15 2 gallon buckets out and didn't even make a dent. The missionaries have come by a few times to help us with our remodel and one time helped me pick rocks for two hours. I'm seeing progress and I'm hoping that if the weather ever cooperates, we'll be able to finish getting the rocks out, smooth the ground, and re-seed.
Here is where we are putting all of our rocks. We drive over this spot often to get to the pasture/corral/backyard, so we'd been thinking about it for a while. Plus we could use another parking spot for the salon, so it just made sense to make one here. I thought that we'd have to bring in a lot of gravel to put here, but we're finding plenty of rock right now in our front yard.
Finally, here are my new raspberries. Nathan found them for free on craigslist and they were in our town, so I went to pick some up, Nathan tilled me a spot, and Jo helped me plant them. I'm really excited for them to grow up and give us some berries.
My salon door. This door is great!! It actually looks better than I thought it would. It lets lots of light into the area that will be a salon and I can see quite a bit out of it, even though it is under my porch.
Another shot of the salon door. You can see a little better that it doesn't totally look like I'm down in a hole. I'm excited to get my coke-bottle-glass window changed and see how that opens things up, too.
Farther away front shot. I realized in that first shot you couldn't see the whole porch. I had to go under the pine tree to get the whole porch (you can see the branches hanging into my picture).
From the driveway.
Looking down the steps to the salon door (or doorway for now).
A closer look at the stairs.
A side view. I just have to say I am SO glad that we had them knock the retaining wall for the steps down. I felt kind of bad at the time, but it looks so much better.
The new view out my front door. Not so scary anymore.
Off to the right.
And to the left.
From the far right corner of the porch looking out at the whole porch.
And looking down into the stairwell from the porch. Yes, it is a high priority to get a railing up here quickly. That is quite a drop.
