Utah! - New Houses

We are back from Utah!  It was a great trip but we are happy to be back home with Ryan.  I know that Willa missed him because she actually recognized and remembered him!  We spent most of our time visiting family and friends.  This post is the "New Houses" post because my sister Carrie and brother Chris both had new houses for me to see!

Carrie's new house: Easton is in the foreground goofing off.

Carrie and her husband are building a wake park in Utah!  A wake park is basically where you can wakeboard being pulled by a pulley-system without a boat.  It's good for learning and also for perfecting wakeboarding skills.  I think it's going to be really successful; it will be the first one in Utah and I think there is a big market for it.  In the wintertime they can convert it to use with snowboards on a course.  They decided to move because they wanted to be closer to where the wake park will be built (it should be open by the end of June or early July).

Carrie is always able to get sweet deals on things, this house is no exception.  She somehow became friends with whomever holds the mortgage on their old house and she got them to switch the exact same mortgage to this new house.  The new house is bigger, nicer, and sits right on the lake with an amazing view!  Their old house was nice, but this house was so beautiful inside and out.  I told Carrie that in a few years when Ryan and I scrape enough money together to buy a tar-paper shack with a dirt floor our kids will love going to their rich cousins' mansion by the lake for cousin sleepovers!

View from the back, don't you love this?  We just wanted to get a lawn chair and sit there for hours; patio furniture is now high on Carrie's want list.

Hanks cousins out front:

This was the best photo we could get, the boys have found a garter snake and it is too interesting!  Talia is getting a closed-mouth smile these days since my dad has made her a brace-face.  We tell her that having braces in junior high is far less embarrassing than having them in high school or beyond.

Look at little Presley-bug.  She is almost four years old and so cute.  She calls her dad Dardy, which is a combination of Daddy and Darcy; she told us at dinner that, "Dardy is my best friend, ever!" Carrie said that another time she asked Carrie if she would be the worker so that Dardy could stay home and play with her.

Chris's house:

Unfortunately, I didn't get an outside shot of Chris and Linsdey's new house.  It's very nice and they moved in secretly in December, but didn't tell anyone about it until Christmas Day!  Chris likes projects and so he has been redoing things room by room.  I think this room is finished (for today).

Here is one of the front rooms.  He framed the room, added the coffered ceiling, the wood paneling around the bottom (I forget what that is called), reframed the windows, and probably more.  He's got the touch.

I love the neighborhood that this house is in.  The homes are all settled-into and it just feels homey; a creek runs by about 100 yards from the house and you can hear it when you have the windows open.  It's so peaceful!

Chris is also the baby whisperer in the family.  I'm not sure if it's because he's the oldest of seven, or if he's just a gentle giant, but Chris is so good with babies and he loves them.  He reaches for whatever baby is in the room and keeps them completely calm and happy whenever he holds them.