"When you go home tonight, there's going to be another story on your house!"

I have a confession, I lie to my children and sometimes it's daily.

I lie to Jack the most.  He always wants to play with a friend after school and I like him all to myself.  I have even gone as far as to pretend call a mom of a friend and have an imaginary conversation with a dial tone.

We were in the car heading to buy some milk.  I was in a stare planning a devious revenge and Jack was just listening to the radio.  He started saying something and it brought me back to reality.

He says, "I thought action dogs pipes were frozen?"

I can't figure out what he is talking about and ask him to repeat.  He says the same thing.  I then pay attention to the radio and hear the plumbers commercial with "action dog."  I didn't realize that those ad's are more of a soap opera and my Jack has been following them.

Marketing at it's best!

This last week marks our four year anniversary of living here in happy valley.  This is the longest we have lived any where in our whole marriage.

Our first house we lived in for almost four years.  It was just a month shy of making to four.

Our first home

Oh I loved that house.  To this day, that has still been my most favorite place to live.  It was a 50 year old house, two bedrooms, red carpet in the kitchen and the same red carpet in the bathroom that did not have a shower.  

We lived in the same ward that the boy grew up.  That was an adventure!  I had the hardest time changing my name when we first were married.  I almost had Jared talked in to changing his name.  I loved my name.  It had been mine for almost 23 years.  In fact, I was called by my last name almost more than my first but that could of been because I was part of the "Angie" generation.  In my fifth grade class alone we had FIVE Angie's.

So when we were first married I was no longer Angie Staley and to most I was Angie Backman but in the ward that the boy grew up I became so and so's son's, wife.  Luckily I did get over that!

Right before Pete was to be born we found out that the boy was to be transferred to the mountains of Colorado to build a five star resort.  We were excited but also very nervous.

Pete was five weeks old when we all made the move.  I believe I cried for most of the drive.

Anything to keep a toddler on the toilet!

Tom learned to potty train in Colorado.  Pete learned to crawl, walk and then run.  Jared skied almost every day at lunch.  I discovered internet shopping, we did live in the middle of nothing! We had our first dishwasher and the kitchen had tile floors.  It was Mecca!

For the 18 months we lived in Colorado we lived in 3 different homes.  The first was where we lived the longest, a year.  Sadly the land lord left her boyfriend and needed her house back.  We moved across the street in the same condo complex and had that sell in two months while living there.  We only had a few months left and could only find a short term lease in a black dungeon of a basement.  Yikers!

We then were to be transferred to Logan but we had a four month break before we could go north.  Our house was still full of renters (don't ever rent your house our, trust me!) so we moved in with Gma and Gpa B.  That was fun.  It was good to be close to family again.

The boys making home in Gma & Gpa B's basement.

It ended up being five months before we made it to Logan.  Providence was to be our home.  The boy had a 12 minute commute.  That was awesome considering most of his commutes up to this point had been close to an hour.

We had awesome neighbors, a fenced backyard for the Molly, more stores than the mountains of CO had to offer, Pete started his criminal record and Tom went to the preschool of Satan's wife (that's a good story!)  We found out that we were going to have a baby girl too.  Life was good up in the Cache Valley.

Jumping on my bed.

A month before I was due with Zoe, we found out that Jared was to be promoted and transferred, great news just the wrong time.  Such stress.  We decided to sell our first home and buy us a home closer to the Salt Lake valley.

It was a Saturday, June 5th to be exact, we headed to Davis county to meet with a realtor and look for homes.  I was miserable.  Half the houses I wouldn't even go down the stairs.  I was feeling a little hopeless.  After we ditched the realtor we headed back to a neighborhood we had driven by and saw a house that was having an open house.  We stopped and liked what we saw.  That night we made an offer and the next Tuesday I delivered a baby girl.  Three weeks later we moved.

Pete napping after lunch.

I enjoyed Farmington.  We had great neighbors, the best babysitter we have ever had, a litter of puppies, free passes to Lagoon, Tom was baptized, a baby Jack and a full completed family.

We had just hit the 3 1/2 year mark of living in Farmington.  The commute was killing the boy and we had literally filled up that house with people.  At this time Jared had been making a once a week commute to the hospital in American Fork.  He had fallen in love with the area, so when we decided to start looking we wanted to look down here.  At the time houses were very over priced.  We were able to make some good change on our own home but we were still in shock at the price of all homes.  We fell for a home on a half acre with enough room right now to survive with hopes that in a few years we could build on.

Well since then, the market has tanked and our house has depreciated with every other house.  I don't know when we will get to build on but for now, it's just perfect.

Zoe and Jack 

Pete has been baptized here, Tom is a deacon, Jack and Zoe both started school, we have lost dogs and added new ones to the family along with chickens.  We are happy.  I am the happiest when it's just the six of us and we are just hanging out, preferably on the couch with a movie on!

I am not moving again.  It's ages me and I am feeling really old these days.  I am grateful these days that we have always had a home to be cozy in.

Here's to getting old!