Lee and I started out the week exhausted and as a result we didn't get quite as much accomplished as we would have liked.  However, we did find our local Safeway, visited with a few friends and enjoyed evenings NOT working on the house.

Last Sunday was our first week at the new ward.  We've managed to live quite close to the church building yet again!  The ward was incredibly welcoming and super friendly.  Our Bishop (or leader of our congregation) even had us over for dinner that day.  And before we left, I was asked to take on a job at church.  So after just 3 hours at our new ward, I'm now the Young Women's Secretary.  I'm struggling with being a bit overwhelmed by it - but I'm sure I will love it.  I just can't believe how quickly I got an assignment! It must be a record. 

In last week's post I forgot to add to "our list of accomplishments" that we went for a run (waddle would be more appropriate) last Saturday.  It was the first one in our new neighborhood and we loved it.  We discovered we live within a mile of Quarry Lakes.  There are miles of trails and you can even go fishing!  So much fun!

So what did we tackle this week?

• Mowed the lawn and manicured the bushes around the house.  Ok, so we didn't do this - we hired it out.  But it still feels like such an accomplishment!  We don't own a lawn mower yet and things were getting a bit out of control - so we reached out to a recommended (and incredibly reasonable) landscaper.  He did a fabulous job.  We have quite a few bushes that were overgrown and too close to the house.  After he left the bushes were trimmed, shaped and at least 6" away from the house.  Hooray!!!
• Put up new drywall underneath the big window in the living room
• Sanded and spackled the remaining areas in the living room (once we learned that we wouldn't be taking down an entire wall)
• Cut out and prepped the areas that required drywall patches.  (This was my first experience cutting drywall down.  It takes some muscle! I now have a deeper respect for the area Lee had to cut out in the ceiling!!!)
• Patched and mudded the three large holes in the living room wall with fresh drywall
• Painted the master bedroom closet.  I'm becoming quite adverse to painting closets - tiny spaces with lots of corners and shelves are incredibly time consuming to paint!  The closet alone took 5 hours and I'm still removing paint from my hair.
• Prepped the living room and hallways for ceiling texture.  The goal was to texture the prepped areas by Saturday night - but no such luck.  Hopefully we'll move quickly this week now that it's all set to go.
• Tried out our oven for the first time! We baked a lasagna (gotta love A.G. Ferrari) and my first batch of chocolate chip cookies!  The oven is fantastic! We LOVE it.