Week 16

Things to notice:  Even though it is wet Oregon, we had to do this wooden fence.  No option to upgrade to a durable man-made product.  Every house in our entire neighborhood (100's of homes) has to have this soon-to-rot nightmare.

There will be a railing around the porch soon, but in the mean time Isaiah loves jumping off.  It's a good size porch--10 feet deep and, um, you know, sort of long.  15 feet long maybe?  Plenty of room for our patio set.  Oh wait, we don't have a patio set, but someday when we get one we'll have a place for it now!

 The yard, although *TINY* by Utah standards is definitely a typical new construction Oregon size.  It's a bit bigger than the back yard in the rental we're in, but tons smaller than our old house.  We keep reminding ourselves:  There is a park just around the corner!  (This doesn't actually substitute for a large backyard because I can't supervise my kids at the park while doing the dishes (or watching TV) but that's okay.  My kids actually go in our teeny rental backyard and play for a long time with no space at all.  They just need some dirt.


The side yard is my favorite.  Whatever is the minimum allowed by code is what we have.  Seriously, if you open our kitchen window and the neighbors open their kitchen window, I'm pretty sure we could hold hands.

Utahns may laugh, but this is the space we're going to use for our garden.  Keep in mind that I can't grow anything anyway, and even if I could, no one in our house eats very much stuff that can be grown.  Zay is only interested in planting mac & cheese.  So this space will be quite suitable.  It's the other side yard, which leaves the back space wide open for the kids.

 Zay showing you how BIG the porch is

Probably the most important upgrade for our new home.

 Right behind Eliza is the door that goes out to the porch.  I will definitely not miss having a sliding glass door--I hate those!  This pic shows the "great room."Great room from the other angle.