Our new home away from home

For the past year we've spent a lot of time building a gathering place for our family. We found property in Fruitland, Utah (about 10 minutes East of Strawberry and only 1 hour and 15 minutes from our home in Provo) in December of 2007, and we began the next spring building our cabin. It's been a different experience than any other home we've built, but now that we have a pillow to lay our heads on, we think it was all worth it. We hope for years to come (actually generations!), we will all enjoy the togetherness that comes when you forget the everyday routine and get away as friends and family. There are fishing streams and lakes close by (a must for the guys), hillsides to four-wheel on (a real adventure for the kids, and kids at heart), a loft for the kids, and a game room for the rest of us. We spent Thanksgiving up there (2008) and even though we had only one bathroom that was working, and no doors yet installed we had a great time getting it all put together (thanks to Gram and Kristi who worked till wee hours getting beds made and dishes and everything else put away). From before Thanksgiving until way after Christmas we were moving box after box in, and at each moving visit we had to begin by cleaning, because in between visits the sub-contractors would be finishing up "one last thing". (This is the main reason there was no Christmas letter last year) During December I took the grandkids up, a few at a time. We made gingerbread houses and watched classic old Christmas movies. Since then we've had lots of fun visits with family and friends at the cabin (I'll post pictures of some of those visits later). We now have more than one bathroom working perfectly, and doors on every room. The fireplace works, and we've all even learned how to light a fire without setting off the smoke detector!! We'll be clearing brush and laying gravel, trimming trees and building sledding hills for the next few years, but we look forward to lots of fun times spent at our new home away from home.