Our backyard is so peaceful. This is a picture looking back at it from the front. You can see Omelette the leghorn chicken, our flower garden, our greenhouse, our apple trees and birch trees. The sun is about to go down over the lake and the mountains.

Our serene backyard
After 7 years of living here in Greeley in this house, I think we have it -almost- just the way we like it. It’s crazy because I remember when we first moved to this house. Schnoodle was sitting on my lap as we drove away in Britton’s parent’s old van with a van-full of my things from my parent’s house in Nunn. We slept on the floor that first night because we were too tired to put anything together. And all the sounds of the house scared me. I was nervous. I was 22. Britton and I had bought a house!

And what a house! It had no grass, no plants, no fence, no sprinkler system, no A/C, no greenhouse, an unfinished basement, and it didn’t even have window coverings or light bulbs (it was a foreclosure)!

So we did a LOT of work. We spent a lot of time and money on this house to make it just how we wanted. A backyard for Schnoodle and Kitty (and then the chickens) was accomplished after putting in a sprinkler system, installing grass and other landscaping, and putting up a fence. We put in the A/C the second year we were here after a 100 degree summer of 2003.

Finishing the basement was fun because we designed it all ourselves. I wanted something warm and bright where we could entertain friends. To accomplish that we put in a fireplace and a wet bar. At the time we thought we might do a sauna, but the fireplace won. I think it was the better choice -although a sauna would rock! To see some before and afters of our basement you can check this out.

This house has a lot of memories for us. We love it because we are on the edges of town and so it feels like we are in the country but we have all the benefits of the city like riding our bikes downtown, walking to parks, doing fun things. My favorite thing? The Colorado sunsets in the summer. What would I change? I would love to get a little more land so we could garden more and have some more animals (chickens, goats, bees). I would like to do more landscaping around the edges of the backyard. I would like a bigger garden. (See I told you I always have projects).

As for things I probably can’t change but wish I could? I wish it didn’t have an HOA even though Britton’s the president of it. Well, and of course I wish we didn’t have such cold winters. That and the fact that we’ve lived in the Greeley area our whole lives (and all that entails) are really the main reasons we would ever leave.

It’s pretty nice to be able to look back and realize that we’ve done a whole heck of a lot in this last decade. This house of ours will always be a part of us no matter where we go. I’ve only lived in three houses my entire life so far. And this little house of mine is my home. We are in a unique time right now. A time of waiting and deciding our future. It is nice to have time for reflection and processing to help clarify our vision of the future. The future is hard to see, but I know that anywhere else (Puerto Rico) I live will bring with it a little piece of my life here in Greeley and with it, my lessons from my first home with my sweet husband.