I have yet to blog about our new house in the mountains. Today I'll share with you some pictures of the place.
We used to live by the Mesa on the east side of Durango. It was a high desert climate. Very warm. Mild winters (except for 1 that Mark will never forget because we had to shovel feet and feet of snow). Dry. Dusty. Beautiful big skies.
We now live on the west side of town 1000 feet higher in elevation than the city of Durango. We actually can say we live in the mountains now. Much more forrested. Cooler (so far). Will most likely have snowier winters. TONS of birds.
We moved into a home on a culdesac.
It sits back away from the street a little. It's kind of hidden behind big pine trees and lots of shrubs (which I'd like to do something about).
The front door has a breezeway that you can see here on the right of this picture. This is of the front/side yard. The tree in the middle is an apple tree. We found that there is a lot of landscaping to uncover. The yard has been neglected for at least 7 years. Lots of pine needles and scrub oak leaves to clean up. But we have gorgeous columbines and lots of irises. Even a couple more fruit trees we think.
This is a picture of our back deck. The back deck is one of my most favorite places to be. We don't really have any houses behind us and we have beautiful views of the sky, the mountains and lots of trees.
I just took this picture below. I'm sitting out here enjoying the sunshine and the many birds! This is looking northeast.
Out back and down the hill from our house is a walking trail. We've only explored it once but have plans to do more hiking this summer. 
Here's one of Kate enjoying the view.
This is looking more northwest. We have lots of scrub oak. I can't wait to see the colors in the fall!
This was of the sunset just 2 nights ago. Sitting out on the back deck after dinner. Glorious!
Last week Mark and I spent a whole day working in the garage. I wish I had a before shot for you. This is the after. We had boxes wall to wall in there. This is major progress. With a little more rearranging we can fit a car in there!
One of the things we had done right away after buying the house was have a bathroom put in the basement. The house originally had 4 bedrooms downstairs but no bathroom. So we converted the smallest room into a good sized bathroom. It has a door leading to the downstairs deck. Here is Kate showing off the new bathroom. This is the view from the door.
And looking back from the sinks.
My parents came down and helped get a bunch of little projects done. My mom stayed all week and we went to Farmington, NM to get supplies to fix up my pantry. A job that both she and I loved doing. We laughed at our excitement over organization :)
Here we are having lunch at Dad's Diner in Farmington.
And here is the before, during and after shots of the pantry. It made a HUGE difference!! And gave us so much more space in the kitchen.
A couple other projects we hired folks to work on (along with the bathroom) were our entryway (imagine this whole area covered in giant mirrors! Again I wish I had a before shot!)
And there used to be a huge opening in this wall that looked down into what is now our family room. We separated the rooms for more privacy. We have a sleeper sofa in there for guests now! This is a picture from our living room side upstairs.
And just for randomness, this is our dining area/school area/ laundry closet space. Tons of built in bookshelves. I didn't know if I'd have enough to utilize the space but sure enough I'm a book hoarder :)
Here's my laundry closet that I hid behind my curtains. Lovely isn't it?
One project I was super excited about was a coffee bar area. I don't have a ton of counter space so I wanted to utilize a different area for the microwave and Keurig. My parents helped put this together. 
I promise to get to that story soon! Hope you enjoyed the tour!
I'll give you a couple more pictures then leave you alone. Here's a view of my kitchen. Mark brought flowers home for me on Tuesday. Aren't they lovely?!
And here's the view of our living room from the top of the stairs. I love the huge windows overlooking the back. And you can see where I've been camped out (when I'm not sunning myself on the back deck) while I've been recovering from surgery.
