Our Slice of Heaven...

So here it is...our little slice of Heaven.

Recently, Ed and I decided to put our little piece of Heaven on the market. It isn't something that we particularly want to do, but with things changing, we think it might be best for our little family.

We've been asked many times how we came upon our place here in Taylor Arizona and what brought us here to begin with. Here's the story...

In September of 2005, after living at Ed's Uncle Bob's ranch just outside of Heber AZ, we decided that we really enjoyed the small town feeling as well as the wide open spaces and so we began our search for a little piece of property in the Snowflake/Taylor area (as much as I liked the town of Heber...I am not a big fan of pine trees!). During our search we found that we really fell in love with the Taylor area and it's beautiful lush pastures. It's a unique area...what isn't pasture, is covered in high desert landscape...Cedars, wild grass and flowers. I enjoy the magnificent sunrises and sunsets. But most of all I fell in love with all of the space and places for my children to roam as they please...collecting frogs (as big as the mind can imagine), bugs of all sorts, snakes, fish, crawdads, and lizards.

I love these pictures...the frog that Wyatt caught was as big as Wylee's foot! This frog came from our back pond.

It was about a foot long
when Wyatt held it

stretched out!

This is just one of the many lizards that Wyatt and Will Jaye have caught. Grandma wanted to capture this little guy on film.

And so our search continued for a place of our own...

Eventually it brought us here...
Minus the little fat horse (yes, that is a horse and his name is Thunderpants!) and the single wide trailer in the background, that little, brown, slump block home is what we thought we would try to renovate! As we began tearing into it, we discovered all sorts of things...the slope that we thought we felt when we originally walked into it, was really a slope! The concrete was poured on grade and so as the property sloped, so did the house. There were absolutely NO headers above any of the doors, or windows. The block that you can see on the outside of the house is actually about 3 inches away from the actual structure (it was added long after the house was built). The electrical was a fireman's dream...I am surprised that it didn't burn down years before...there were bare wires hanging behind the drywall...speaking of drywall...there wasn't much of that. Most of it was peg board, particle board or that ugly wood panel siding! And how about the plumbing on the exterior of the bathroom walls? When we started digging into the bathroom, well...
Lets just say that when we finally did this to the house..

we found snakes living in the walls and under the 1in slab of concrete in what used to be the bathroom.

You might be asking yourselves why then would we waste our time with it...well, we have remodeled a number of different homes...all of which weren't this bad of course, but, if you could have this...

...and this...yes those are apples making the tree limbs sag like that!!!

Wouldn't you love to have this?

When we finally closed on the property in October of 2005 (an answer to many prayers), we were so excited (we hadn't discovered any of these unfortunate things of course yet!). All and all, we were excited! We were thrilled about all of the fruit trees! Apple, cherry, pear, and peach trees lined the front of the property. A BIG RED BARN sat on the southwest corner of the property with the potential of one day holding in it's care horses, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, you name it! The property came with water rights...and boy do my kids love 'irrigation day'...

All of this was officially ours! It was a dream come true!

We cleaned up trash and junk for months and months. In fact, we are still finding things that have been buried...some of which we have collected and placed on the fireplace mantel in our new home (old door knobs, handles to old shovels, and even an old draft horse bit.)

We have enjoyed the stories that people in town have told us about our very unique little property. This town may I mention, is rich with heritage! That is part of what draws so many to this special little place. We know it is quite the little treasure.

We already had plans drawn up for a future home we wanted to build...we hadn't intended to build it here, but decided it would be as good a place as any. And, since the existing home was...well...not livable, we went ahead with the plans to build, and bought ourselves a beautiful, Salmon colored, single wide trailer with forest green trim to live in temporarily until our new home was completed.

We began the whole building process in April of 2006, just after our 5th child Waylon was born. We had intended to build the home on a basement, but opted not to after we began.

















These two pictures were taken on the 4th of July...We celebrated the 1st of many family reunions in our little single wide trailer...Some camped in the kitchen of the new house...others on the floor of the trailer, some decided that the local hotel sounded better. We watched the fireworks from the 2nd floor of our new framed home...I'm sure if OSHA knew we would have been in big trouble!

When Ed wasn't working on other projects, he and his crew worked on our home. I loved having him close to home and so did the kids. It wasn't uncommon for the boys to be out there helping their dad frame up a wall, pick up nails, and stack lumber. It was exciting to literally look out our windows of the trailer and see our new home take shape!

I like this picture...however at the time I was not very happy with Ed! He didn't want any of his workers on the beam for fear that they would fall...which is why I didn't want him up there! I am sure he had quite the view up there though. We had to have a crane come to set this massive beam...he had to climb out onto the middle of the beam to release the straps.

These are photos that were take of the finished project...Ed and I came up with this idea for the doors in the office together. They slide on a track which gives it kind of an old barn look. The photos below are pictures of the dinning area...we wanted the theme of the interior to be warm and inviting with a rustic touch...The kitchen, dinning and family/great room are all very open which allows us the opportunity to be together especially during family gatherings. However, the sink and all my dirty dishes can not be seen from the front room because of where the sink is positioned in the kitchen...I hate doing dishes...and so it is not uncommon for my sink to be full of dishes. The lower picture is of the front entry. Something that I like about the entry is that it is open and inviting...but not too dramatic. The master bedroom turned out to be a lot bigger than I had thought that it would. I love that I can cuddle up in my chair and sit next to the wood burning stove. I love my bedroom! We read scriptures in there together...we hang out and tell stories together. It is one of our favorite family places to be. There are many nights that we have at least one kid camped out on the floor...the night that our little Waylon passed away, we had all of the kids camped out on our floor all the way around the bed...we wanted to be together and it was the biggest room to be together in...if I could pick one word to discribe our room, it would be...comfort!!! The picture on the other side of our bedroom is the bar in between the family room and the kitchen.

These pictures just show some of the rustic wood work that is all through the entire house.

The pictures above are of both the master bathroom and the guest bathroom. The large tub is our "swimming hole". The kids love it! They beg to take a bath...strange kids!

Next to those of the bathrooms are pictures of the boys rooms. The dormers and ceiling in the boys rooms are all wood made to look like the old barn that we used to live in at the ranch. One of my favorite things are the base boards thoughout the house...just simple 1x2 boards stained...I don't have to wipe the baseboards down...ever... just a simple dusting does the trick!

Our family room is the gathering place in our home. There is no TV! We do have hook-ups for one above the fireplace, but we enjoy not having it there so that we can enjoy eachothers company.

I love my home. As I sit and think about everything that has taken place in the last 4 years, since we have been here, it makes me sad to think that someone else might one day sit in this very room typing about their 'new' home. We have shared together as a family many life altering changes here. We brought Waylon home to this place...We saw Waylon leave this life from this very place. We have had a number of family reunions here...both on the Ulrich side and the Washburn side. We have gathered here for happy occassions and sad ones. We welcomed little Winston to his new earthly home here. We have celebrated birthdays, blessings, baptisms, and so many holidays. We have learned simple things here. We have learned great things here. We have lost favorite pets and buried them close by. We have planted trees in memory of our special boy...in his favorite 'digging' spot. We have lost and found buried treasures...we have learned new skills and found new talents. We have made many good friends here. We have enjoyed becoming united as a family here as we learn about eachother. We have cried, laughed, sighed, slept, reminised, gathered, and loved here! How could anyone want to leave such a wonderful place?

I suppose it's not that we want to leave, it's wanting to do what we feel it right...which doesn't make it easy...but I am sure that one day it will be worth it!