Title Change

So...the list of occupants in the Shuldberg home is becoming so extensive...I decided it was time for a new title.

The Shuldberg Zoo!!!

Featuring:

Abigail the Wet Wonder

Tank the Trash Compactor

Archimedes the Scholar

Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, and Little Red Hen

Wigs and McGuiver

Picasso the Terrible

And our newest addition:

Nefertiti the Queen of Egypt

And who can forget my wonderful husband:

Roy the Snake Charmer

(He actually really dislikes snakes...his kind heart won out on this one ;) )

And finally...

one more that is half done (eek!) cooking and will have pictures and more information available tomorrow :)

Now for a few projects....

First comes the nursery...Oh what a project! This little has turned into a nightmare. I didn't like the paneling that was on 2 fulls walls and half of the other two...so we tried to find a solution. We would take the paneling off the half walls and putty in the cracks on the full ones. Started out as a great plan...until we realized that the paneling was not only nailed to the drywall, it was glued as well, leaving a nasty resude on the wall when we pulled it off (the nasty brown squiggly lines in the pictures). Also the other half of the wall was painted with a really thick textured paint that we can't imitate (and don't want to) so comes our next solution: sanding, by hand, 2 full walls in this bedroom so we can paint it and make it look nice for the baby....*sigh*

These pictures are from the started process. We took off the paneling and we are currently working on the sanding...that will take forever...

And my latest project:

:) We made the chicken coup (which I still need to post completed pictures of) and decided the ducks needed something to so Roy built and I decorated this cute summer cottage for them. :) I am so proud. As I was working on it, I thought a lot about my mom. She was really good at stuff like this. I know she would appreciate (and laugh at) the work I put into this duck house.

Our New House

This will probably be the first of many "before" pictures for our new house. We have a lot of ideas for change around here but we want to make sure and document what it looked liked before. These pictures are from very early "spring" when things were just starting to bloom. Things look much more alive now. We have already started making changes so I will post the "after" pictures as things are finished. This first series will just be outside.

I am very proud of these daffodils. Roy and I planted these in February! They came up a little later than everyone else's but that just meant they didn't freeze like everyone else's. :)

(in the ones above, the middle picture is actually a tulip, and we didn't plant it; the previous owners did.)
Roy got a new lawnmower and had to try it out the day we got it.

 These are our trees. We have a full grown plum and a full grown cherry tree that are both finished blooming. And we just planted a peach, an apple, and a bing cherry.

These pictures are from the back yard. We have a lot of space for a garden, a strawberry patch (that Abigail is trampling through), and a couple of sheds and barns. There was also a nasty old "chicken coup" of some kind next to the shed. We tore it apart and burned it and are building a nice new beautiful one for our chickens (There is also talk of a "duck house" for the two ducks we recently acquired-we'll see what happens).

This last one is a big pile of old wood and junk that was left in the yard. It has come in handy as Roy has had to "redneck" a few places in the fence to keep Abigail in the yard. Exhibit A:

It is hard to tell but there is rope weaved across the top of the fence to close off holes betweent he chain link and the rebar horse fence we had to put up to make it taller. Abigail is a jumper.
So that is our yard right now. We have several projects in the works so there will be more pictures forthcoming.

and Chicks!!!!!!

So Roy and I decided to add to our crazy little weird family we've got and got 4 little chicks today. I grew up getting fresh brown eggs and I miss it. So I suckered my loving husband into buying some chickens. :)

The dogs are fascinated.

Tank would stare at them all night if we let them....but Abigail doesn't like them much so they stay locked up.

These are the 4 little chicks. Don't have official names yet...we'll wait and let them earn a name.

Roy doesn't love them yet but I hope he'll like getting the eggs once they are grown...

Wow...I am pathetic....

So...I really need to try harder at this whole "blogging" thing. I am obviously really bad at it. I suppose this post can act as a quick update to get us to the present and I can try to just keep up from there.

 So Roy and I have moved out of our little dinky first apartment in the Big Green House (thus the change in the title of our blog). I decided it would be a good idea to get some pictures of it so Roy and I can look back and laugh at the sad, quarky, tininess of it someday. These are a few just before we started packing up.

We begin in the rather spacious living room.

This was Roy's corner :)

 

Then we pass through the hallway.

 

To the right a quaint bedroom. 

 

This is Roy's office - a nook just off of our bedroom

 

To the left  in the hall a tiny bathroom. (Every room is too small to actually get a picture of the whole room)

 

Finally, we come to the smallest kitchen ever to exist. Yes, I did cook in here. Cooking together in here brought us closer as a couple...literally...

 We just bought a beautiful house in Highland, Utah. The house was built in the late 1970s and has been well cared for. Our favorite part is the HALF ACRE of land we can't wait to start working on. We have big plans for a garden that we are going to try to kind of start this weekend (we have to get the raspberries in because they are disappearing from all the stores and the weather is just to beautiful to resist!). As we don't have any other real use for all of the space, our garden plans consist of about half of the yard! It should be fun. :) It will keep us plenty busy.

 Roy has already begun major renovations, in the name of his childhood icon: Tim the Toolman Taylor (we have had several successive holes in the walls - I feel your pain Jill Taylor!) - If you don't get it, shame on you.
We are putting a HUGE wood stove in downstairs and the bricking is proving to be time consuming. I'll take the blame for that because, of course I can't just have a simple basic brick pattern; "It has to be PRETTY honey!!"

 Yay for the help of the Father-in-Law who knew how to lay bricks! (My dad, Roy's father-in-law)

 Roy lays his first bricks. It is a big day in home improvement history.

Our neighborhood is really great. It is a cross between Utah-mansionville and Utah-farmville. We love it :) (If anyone is wondering, we live in the older, farmier part). The ward is great and we have already made some great friends. Roy is the secretary in the Elder's quorum. Sure didn't take them long to figure out that's where God needed him. For me however, God thought good and hard about where to send me. Just a few weeks ago I was called as primary chorister. It has been a lot of fun teaching and learning all of the primary songs I remember from primary and even some I have never heard before.

Roy works at IM Flash technologies (which is a 10 min drive from home by the way-jealous!!). I just got promoted to part lead in his department and is busier than ever. I am a science teacher at a junior high in Lindon (30 min away from I might add...). Technically I am an intern I won't graduate until April but I do just as much work as the other teaches--I say forget technicalities! I teach the 7th and 8th grade integrated science classes and it is a new adventure every day. You never know what new things junior high kids will surprise you with.

If you were wondering about the new title: we have two dogs (as you may have noticed in the above pictures as they "helped" Roy lay bricks...they "help" a lot...), Abigail and Tank. Abigail is mixture of lab, hound, and rottweiler. Tank is Shar pei mixed with lab. Why are they crazy? Silliest dogs ever. Abigail is the first dog I have known to hide and bury bones. She tried to bury her bone in a POTTED PLANT in the living room!!!! She also chases her tale and little red laser lights. Tank is allergic to everything! No exaggeration. We are pretty sure he reacts to chicken, which is in E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G!!!! Okay not everything, just the things don't cost a fortune and a half to buy. He itches non-stop which means he is nearly hairless at this point. :( Poor guy. We are working very hard to find out what we can do to fix it. I have an aquatic painted turtle in my classroom named Archimedes (named after the scientist who discovered buoyancy). The kids love him, especially when he hunts goldfish. :) We have a giant plecostomus (sucker fish) named Picasso. No kidding: GIANT! He is more than a foot long! So that is our big, happy, weird, misfit family. :)

 Abigail on the left.  Tank on the right.

This is Picasso. That Goldfish is about 3 inches....
(PS - that is not a curling iron, it is a water heater)

Sorry no picture of Archimedes yet. :(

Well I guess that about takes us to this point in our life...Just working and trying to enjoy it.