Apple Vale!

   I admit that starting a blog and closing on a house at the same time is ambitious, especially when one considers we have less than six weeks to get some pretty serious renovating done and move in simultaneously.  It's a great education for my kids in project management, cost tracking, and good old-fashioned hard work and elbow grease!  Have I mentioned that we homeschool?  For the last 16+ years as a matter of fact!  Here are my kiddos standing on the back deck of the new house they have dubbed "Apple Vale" after a house in one of their favorite novels.  The neighborhood was built on an apple orchard, and we have several large trees out back we're hoping to harvest this fall!
   This is a 'before' picture of the deck which has lacked any maintenance for at least three years of harsh New England weather.  My daughter is holding a pitcher of peonies cut from one of the languishing perennial beds out in the yard that exploded two weeks after we signed papers thinking the yard was 'iffy!'  Lots of work to catch up on out there too, but for now will focus on the inside so we can get moving our things!