Before and After......

New back porch and sidewalk

Front porch before the latest and newest model was installed

New front porch--covered, new decking, new steps, paver bricks, and painted railings. I learned how to weld by helping Dad install the railings!

How the back looked when we bought the place

Just in case you think that we have been spending our summertime fishing in streams, lazily dreaming, and watching the clouds go by.......think again! We've been working our tooshes off on the Ioka house--inside and outside. We are officially done inside--everything is painted and finished--all new appliances, flooring, doorknobs, new bathroom, new cabinets, new lighting, new doors, carpet, wooden flooring, tile floors, the WORKS! We've put in new windows, two new porches, paving bricks for walkways and a nice new patio in the front, new lighting, covered the two porches, put on a new roof, tore off old porches and buildings, burned TONS of junk, and cleaned out tool buildings. Now we hope to get new siding on before winter comes. I'm pooped just thinking of the hours we've spent on this house. It's a cute house now tho! I'll post some pictures later of the inside and how nice it turned out. We actually just put renters in it last week in hopes that they would keep it nice and warm through the winter and not let any pipes burst. Anyway, it's been a fun project but am glad that we can finally see the finish line!

Need fire? Hire Terry--he'll burn ANYTHING!

John clearing out one of the tool sheds. You couldn't walk into it when he started!

The original porch on the front of the house

My New Ride

Lookie, lookie at what my hubby bought me this past week! Am I lucky or what! It's even my very favorite color! What a guy!! We took it down on the Piute Trail from Thursday through Sunday. We had a blast with this thing. Who knew, but when you buy a Razr, you become part of a group of people that can absolutely talk your leg off about accessories and bling that you can buy for your own Razr. Everywhere we went we saw a Razr. Lots of red ones out there. It was soooooo fun sitting side by side inside of riding my own ATV and being pooped by dinnertime. My ol' Honda has served me well for 5 years but this new set of wheels is right up my alley!  Trust me when I tell you that we rode LOTS of miles this weekend and she has TONS of scratches on her from being in tight brush but she did well. I even gained a new riding partner--aka my dog, Bailey! Shes LOVES it too! We had a WONDERFUL time together -- the new wheels just made it THAT much MORE fun........Love ya hon. Thanks for the new wheels!  By the way, Dad likes it cuz it has DRINK HOLDERS!!

Happy Anniversary!

Can you believe these two just celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary? Where has the time gone? They took off and went to Salt Lake for a getaway to mark the occassion and we got to dog sit Cannon. I love these two crazies. They make our already disfunctional family complete and fun. Love you guys! Keep smiling and adding laughter to our lives! Congratulations on FIVE years and hope it's 80 more years together for you!

Crazy Family Time

We recently spent a weekend with these two crazies. What can we say about family? Mostly how much we truly enjoy spending time with them. We don't slow down from our overly busy lives enough to just enjoy laughing, story telling, jokes, experiences, and just good ol' BS sitting around and doing nothing time. We had a great time with Anthon and Becky. We enjoyed the late night ATV rides too! ;) Nature at its best, eh? Need to do more of those--minus the mud cuz Anthon is a WILD man when it comes to mud! And next time let's try to find the other boot or maybe a new location for the one left behind!! Thanks for a relaxing and fun weekend guys. Let's do it again EVERY summer! BTW, we were on the very top of a HUGE rock plateau and it was POURING rain. Becky and I were frrreeeezzzzzing--even in August! We're glad our family is crazy--gives us something to laugh and smile about and makes for more fun times. We've never been good at boring and "normal"!!

Bathroom Remodel

Forgot to post pictures of the new bathroom in the Ioka house. We decided to take out the bathtub and just do a big walk-in shower. We ordered the walls and trim and Terry did his magic in creating the "tub" or shower floor. We used a darker color on the walls and a lighter color for the trim, soap dish and shampoo shelf. It turned out really nice and I LOVE it! Glad we went this route. We liked the material so much that we are putting in a vanity top to match the lighter  color and then...........the Ioka house will FINALLY be done at last. Only took us 2 years of 1 or 2 weekends a month to get the inside of this place done!!!!! I LOVE this house now though. Sooooooo much better than when we bought it! I could sooooooo get used to only living in 800 square feet too--doesn't take but a quick blink and this place is spic and span! The first picture is what the old bathroom looked like before the remodel. Glad I'm married to a handy guy. There isn't much that he can't do! Please ignore the awful flash reflection in these pictures--couldn't remember how to turn the flash off. And PS Amber, I had to do the painting (3, yes I said three, paint colors in there!)  in the new bathroom--Dad wouldn't do it for me. So you just need to suck it up and get yours painted without him!!

A Ride of a Lifetime!

For Terry's Birthday Celebration this year, we went for a hot air balloon ride in Eden, Utah. It was soooo much work to get the balloon off the ground but once we were up in the air.........WOW! The scenery was breathtaking and the quiet--UNBELIEVEABLE! There were a total of 12 balloons that day. Each balloon was colorful and  were different sizes.  We were lucky enough to fly in a basket with only the two of us and our pilot, Mac. Other balloons held as many as 8 people. The ride lasted for a little over an hour and we were definetely not ready for it to end. We landed in a field and had to lift the basket over a farmer's gate and then fold the balloon back up and put it and the basket into the trailer that carried it on Mac's truck. We learned alot that day about hot air balloons and flying. We know that we would like to do it again someday. After the balloon gear was packed away in the trailer, we all headed back to the launch site for a brunch and an initiation. There were 4 of us first time flyers to be initiated that day. When you fly, you become a member of the "aeronaut" family of flyers. The initiation is fun, lengthy, and private--uh, secret to the point that they ban you from ever flying again if you reveal the details to a non-flying areonaut!!  Afterwards, we enjoyed a beautiful and relaxing brunch. These aeronauts really know how to put out a food spread! There was BBQ pork loin, hamburgers, chicken, hot dogs, brats, spicy mexican fajitas, chips galore, fresh fruit, cake, salads of every kind imagineable, and on and on and on.......it was good stuff. These people really enjoy spending the mornings together and enjoy whooping it up when they are done with their ballooning activities! They are like a ward family. We had to be to the launch site (a field owned by Wolf Creek Resort) at 6:30 AM and we didn't leave the brunch area until 11:30!  And we were some of the first to go......but I had to pee and there were no facilities so we went on.  They were a great bunch of people that were excited to have a few newbies join them.  It definetely was an experience of a lifetime. And we are already talking about doing it again in the wintertime when the scenery would be different and the balloon could stay in the air longer. All in all, a GREAT way to celebrate a birthday. It comes highly recommended -- by us -- 2 of the newest aeronauts around!

More of Grandpa Dale's Junk

Some recent (and forgotten about!) photos of the junk tractor on the Ioka property......more pics of other junky machinery and outbuildings to follow at a later date. Don't want to forget this stuff--truly!