Oh hey friends, it’s been a minute! Our last post was in early March and poof here we are and it’s May 4. As the boys have been saying all day “May the 4th be with you!” #starwarsforlife

Believe it or not, it’s still snowing here. The last few days we’ve had sun, rain, and measurable snow. Gotta love spring in the Rockies!

Projects at the house have slowed down over the last few weeks. Kelsey is working hard with his property management clients, working for our neighborhood water district, and filling in with odd jobs for various other folks. In a nutshell, he’s busy enough to not have enough time to do much at our place, but we’re happy to have his efforts bringing in some funds to help fuel our family. And, pretty amazing that he’s building a great base of work without a drop of marketing. Shameless plug, if you’re looking for the most honest and hardworking guy around for small remodeling projects, property maintenance or anything else, Kelsey is your man!

We’ve enjoyed some family visits from my brother, Kelsey’s dad (aka Funkle) and his partner Margaret and Kelsey’s mom, Laurie. It feels so good to be able to host family in our new home!

Funkle (Dave) and Margaret on the left, Laird and Corbin in the middle, Cindy and Neil on the left.

To help prepare for our company, we needed to clear out the guest room, which had been turned into a tool storage space when we first moved in. It was a pretty daunting endeavor, with big heavy tools and other building supplies that didn’t really have a good place to land. But, we hauled everything out to the great room and slowly worked through the piles, throwing some things away, sending some down the crawl space, and storing some in the utility room. Truth be told, we still have a stack of 6 big tubs that are in the entryway, but everything as a lid on it, so it looks fairly neat.

Everything is out in the great room. Keep in mind it was about 10:45 pm at this point. ha!

We had to wash the windows about 3 times each from all the construction dust!

The finished product! Now, we just need to find a rug. Any suggestions?

While Dave and Margaret were in town, we went up to Steamboat Springs for the day to catch some spring skiing! It was almost 50 degrees and sunny the day we were there and it was so great to see the boys experience Steamboat for the first time.

Corbin slaying the spring snow on Tomahawk!

We hosted our first Easter brunch with some good friends. Their oldest son is in 2nd grade with Laird. The boys played outside for hours, we did a little egg hunt, and of course we all enjoyed our traditional bunny cake.

The Easter Bunny found us at the 9,290 Home!

A family tradition! My Grandma Huston used to make a bunny cake each year for Easter.

In other exciting news, Kelsey’s sister, Ashlee, had a baby on April 6! The boys loved meeting their sweet little baby girl cousin for the first time! And, Kelsey and I are over the moon to have a niece to spoil!

Then, at the end of April, we headed to Florida for our family vacation to Disney World! My folks treated us to the trip and my brother and sister-in-law joined us too! It was an awesome week of marathon days at the parks and some time at the pool and beach. I’ll share more about what we experienced at Disney amidst a global pandemic in our next post.

The next big project we’ll tackle is our deck. Kelsey submitted our plans to the building department and everything came back approved. Since we’re acting as our own general contract, Kelsey needs to renew his general liability insurance. Once we have that finalized, we’ll be able to go pick up the permit and order material. Don’t even get me started on the cost of lumber...ugh. We’re very thankful we got through the bulk of our build with lower prices and feel for the other families who are buying lumber now. Yikes!

What’s coming up next?

Finalize general liability insurance, go pick up our deck permit from the building department, and order material
Organize a deck building party. Anyone want to join in on the fun and help us build the deck? We’ll provide snack and drinks and definitely a beer a the end of the day.
Keep chipping away on other projects
- Fill nail holes
- Touch up paint
- Hang our new sheers on the lower great room windows
- Kitchen backsplash
- Master shower
- Hang photos and artwork
- Install the final three drawer pulls in the kitchen
- Finish the laundry room cabinets and shelving
- Continue to find things to donate as we get settled
- Plant a few aspen trees to start to get some privacy from the road. We have some neighbors who want to thin out their yard and early spring is a great time for aspen transplant.
- Start prepping for our garage build

Thank you, as always, for your love and support during this wild home building journey. We’re looking forward to hosting many more family and friends and eventually having a big housewarming party when it’s safe to do so.

Happy trails,

Cory

Here are some more photos from our life and getting settled at our home.