dream home

While we were in Colorado this May I discovered a new hobby of mine: driving through lovely neighborhoods and photographing beautiful houses.  I had serious neighborhood envy!  Oh the trees, the yards, the general greenery, the lovely brick homes.  I could picture myself in almost all of these!  When we would see a beautiful house with a "for sale" sign it took every ounce of self control to not call and set up an appointment to view the inside as a potential buyer.  Am i right in thinking this is normal? 

Right now my home is far from perfect.  It needs painting outside, new windows, and lots of little things here and there.  But what home doesn't need projects?

  I am really grateful Andrew and I own our home.

We've lived in it over three years and it already holds so many precious memories.

I suppose we can move somewhere else but right now our home needs us and we need it.

In the mean time I have superb ideas for gardening and home decor and am coming up with some lovely color schemes for external paint.

Bit by bit we are getting there.

These houses aren't comparable to castles by any means, but to me they all look cozy and perfect for raising a family.  Which ones caught your eye?  I love the third and last!

Denver Colorado Temple

My mom has a list of all the temples everyone in my family have visited (seeing from freeway doesn't count) and have done temple work in.  There have been only two temples I've done temple work in and they were the temples I lived near; the Mesa Arizona Temple and Preston England Temple.  Those two temples will always have a special place in my heart.

I love Zara's face here!

Let's see if I can remember all the temples I've visited the grounds:

:: Mesa Arizona

:: Snowflake Arizona

:: Preston England

:: Fresno California

:: Oakland California

:: Provo Utah

:: Salt Lake Utah

:: Orlando Florida

:: Denver Colorado

I don't plan on visiting all the temples in the world but I think it would be neat to dedicate a wall in my house to frame pictures of temples my little family have been to.  What temples have you been to?  Any favorites?

Colorado State Capitol

Our hotel was located in downtown Denver area and right after we got settled in our hotel room we went on a walk and happened upon the State Capitol.  I wish I got some nice exterior pictures because the building was very beautiful.  But so is the inside!  I mean, look at the detail on the elevator!

There was this hallway with a painting of every President, except Pres. Clinton was missing.  What the?!

I couldn't help looking at all the crown molding and wondering how to recreate it.

Not that I want my house to look just like that, but the detail is incredible!

Denver Zoo

I was excited to go to the Denver Zoo because I thought it would have a lot of different animals and birds the Phoenix Zoo and I was right.  There were some animals I didn't recognize altogether.  Somehow Andrew has never been to the Phoenix Zoo so he had nothing to compare it to but we both had an enjoyable time.  Andrew saw a Rhino for the first time!

There were so many amazing exhotic birds.  I love the feathers on the birds on the bottom right.  So fluffy!

Does anyone know what that animal is on the bottom right?  It has little horns.

The big primates were Andrew's favorites.

He also loved the big bears.  My favorite were the flamingos.  Such pretty colors!

Wish we could have stayed there longer but we seemed to have come during an off-season because many of the animals weren't even in their homes.  It also kept raining and was a little too cold for Zara.  Going to the Denver Zoo made me want to visit the Phoenix Zoo again.  What are your favorite animals?

Butterfly Pavilion

Ever been to a butterfly pavilion before?

I've been wanting to go to one ever since I read about Fancy Nancy going.  (I love those books!)

We went in Denver and I fell in love.

So many pretty butterflies and gorgeous flowers everywhere!

I had to keep fighting the urge to sit down and read a book.

Wouldn't it be so cool to have a conservatory like this filled with lush plants, exotic blossoms, butterflies fluttering, perfect temperature, book shelves and some comfy chairs.  Some day . . .

I kept trying to get the butterflies to land on me

like I saw them do to so many other people there but they didn't.

Inside the museum there were spiders, grasshoppers, fish, starfish, and other cool things on exhibit.

I wish Elliot and Avery could have been there. They would have loved it!

Zara, on the other hand, wasn't too happy to be there.

the reason for our Colorado trip . . .

It's already been a week since Andrew graduated but it's still settling in.

It's wonderful being able to plan things for Saturday

and weeks nights now that Andrew doesn't have homework!  

I'm so proud of him right now.

The campus was beautiful and reminded us a little bit of NAU and all the fun times we had there.

We tried to imagine what it would have been like to live in Fort Collins while he attended school on campus but we just couldn't.  We're glad he did CSU.  Doing the online course was the right way for us.

I was excited to whip out my nice big lens for these pictures.

Glad I couldn't capture the moment on film.

I loved hearing his name: "Andrew Francis Freeman".  Yep.  That's my grad husband!

Having attended both Andrew's graduations we agreed the one in England was much better.

Much more pomp and circumstance,

although the undergrads were kind enough to provide a ball for entertainment.