before and after

The unexpected part of our home purchase was the large garden/Chinese rock garden that was unearthed once the snow melted in the Spring.  Large meaning 38 feet by about 15 feet!  And by the time that we moved in late July, the weeds were nearly 6 feet tall.  It was not pretty!  We've spent a lot of time on that piece of land.

Ryan was very gracious and helped chop down weeds and haul them away to the dump for us.

 Nathan turned over the soil in the garden area.

 After much debate, we decided to buy a used play set which dad helped us pick up using a rented flatbed trailer. 

 Dad and Nathan spent one whole Saturday morning clearing out the white rock and bringing that away.

 Ryan, Dad and Nathan spent another couple of hours putting the play set back together in our yard.  And we just hired some guys to put sod down around it.  We did leave a rectangular garden area.  (We're looking forward to having a garden next summer. :)

 We still need to put a canopy on the play set and put sand in the sandbox, but it looks 100 times better already!  And today Aniah and Eden were at our house for the afternoon and the kids played in the backyard for a long time.  I love having a play set!!!  And I'm so thankful that we aren't going to be known as "the house with the white rock in the backyard" anymore.

THANK YOU to all the guys who helped with this project!!!  I think our neighbors are appreciative as well.  :)

our lovely home

Here it is!  It was almost exactly one year ago when Nathan was having some conversations with Dordt about a possible job for him.  I went online to look at housing in Sioux Center just because I was curious.  :)  This house was for sale and my comment was "this house is perfect, I wonder why it's still for sale.  I'm sure it won't still be available IF and when we move."  Then when we were here over Christmas break, we were quite certain that we were going to be moving here and looked through some houses, including this one.  And here we are!  It's feeling much more like our home every day!  I have spent the last year (literally) dreaming about what it was going to look like and I've been having a lot of fun organizing and decorating it.  :)   

Master Bedroom

 Master Bath

 Office

 Front Door:  As you enter the front door, our bedroom is to the right, the office is to the left, and straight ahead is our living room.

 Living Room

 Toy Room

 Kitchen

 Laundry Room

 Main Bathroom

 Downstairs Hallway:  To the left are Dorian and Levi's rooms and to the right is their bathroom.

 Dorian's Room

 Levi's Room

 Boys' Bathroom

 Game Room/Storage Room

 Downstairs Family Room

 Spare Bedroom (or scrapbooking room :)

 Outdoor Photos

First Visitors

September 22:  Mom and Dad Tintle arrived just before midnight.
September 23:  We spent the morning showing them around our new home which they hadn't yet seen and eating omlettes that Nathan had made.
Dorian drew a whole stack of rainbows to give to Grandpa and Grandma. 

 Dorian and Levi have been making forts downstairs with chairs, tables and blankets.  :)

 Mid-morning we drove over to Dordt to give a tour of Nathan's office and the campus.

 Getting gumballs at daddy's office is a huge thrill for the boys!

 There was a performance at the Student Life Center that we watched for a little while.

We ate lunch at the Pizza Ranch and then spent the afternoon at our house.  The swings and slide hadn't yet been put on our new playset, so the guys put them up.  Nathan had a phone conference for a couple of hours.  Then we grilled brats for supper.  Unexpectedly, a crew of guys came shortly after we sat down to eat on the deck, to sod around the playset.  So it was quite distracting but fun for the boys to watch all of the action. 

In the evening, we had a birthday party for Dorian.  It doesn't seem real to me that he will be 5 so soon!  He loves chocolate so he had a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  I made it a rainbow cake because Dorian draws rainbows on everything and has been for many months.  :)  I love it!

Grandpa and Grandma gave him some gifts all related to bugs, which Dorian loves!  A bug game that has tons of facts about bugs and came with about 15 big plastic bugs to play with.  And a bug jar to catch his own bugs.  At the moment I'm looking at it and it's filled with some dirt, leaves and a worm.  And yes, it is sitting on the table in our office.  :)  Boys are fun!

September 24:  We ate pancakes for breakfast and the boys found some time to play with Grandma on the Lego table.

Then we left for Pumpkin Land mid-morning.  The weather was perfect!  First I told the boys that they could each pick one big and one small pumpkin.  I figured I could decorate the front steps of our house and eventually carve or paint them with the boys.

Then Grandpa and Grandma took the boys through the kids corn maze.  Dorian led the way and enjoyed that!

 Next the boys were able to each have a pony ride.  It was a first for both of them.

 Then we walked over to the petting zoo where the boys held some kittens and watched some goats.

We ate lunch at home and then drove to Sioux City to a miniature golf course that we'd been to once before.  Aren't my boys good looking?

On the way home from Sioux City we had to stop for Blue Bunny ice cream in LeMars.  We ate a late dinner at the Family Table and had some delicious Iowa steaks. 
September 25:  We were all up the next morning to say goodbye and we also got to watch the beautiful sunrise from our house.  I was excited to have them here to see our new home and our community.  We had a lot of fun.