For Rent

Layton, UT Townhome

3 bed/3 bath

1400 sq. ft.

$975.00 per month (includes HOA)

Quiet, tree-lined street in a small community. Flowerbed. 1-car garage with room for shelving.

Entryway/Porch. The door to the left is where the trash can is stored (no unsightly trash cans next to the houses.)

Living/Family Room. New paint and carpet throughout the house. Ceiling fan. All new light fixtures and 2-inch white faux-wood blinds throughout the house. Sliding glass door leads to a small patio and a beautiful back yard. No neighbors behind us.

 

Kitchen/Dining Room. Brand new tile leads from the front door down the hall into the kitchen and dining room.  Fridge with water and ice in the door, stove, and dishwasher included. Chandelier over table and pendant light over sink. Kitchen island is also a bar with room for four stools. New garbage disposal. Pantry. The window by the table looks out to grass and trees.

  

Guest Bathroom on main level. New tile. Washer and dryer closet behind double doors. Washer and dryer is negotiable.

Upstairs is a landing with enough room for a small office workspace. Also has a large storage closet.

Master Bedroom. This is a queen-sized bed and there’s room for a large dresser. Window looks out onto grass and trees in the backyard. 

Master Bathroom. 18-inch tile floor and shower surround. Porcelain bath, updated shower head and fixtures. Curved shower rod for more elbow room in the shower.

 

Second Bedroom.

Third bedroom. Window looks out to a front maple tree.

    

Third Bathroom.

Back yard. Mature trees and shrubs. Beautiful lawn. Lamp posts.

 

Other key features of our community include:

-Swimming pool!!
-Clubhouse (can be reserved for gatherings and parties)
-2 playgrounds
-Lawn care/Snow removal
-Garbage and Water

Area schools:

Ellison Park Elementary (Brand new)
North Davis Preparatory Academy (Elementary charter school)
Central Davis Junior High
North Davis Preparatory Academy (Junior high charter school)
Layton High School

Favorite LOCALLY-OWNED restaurants:

-University Broiler and Grill (Greek)
-C&B Maddox Favorite Chicken
-Pace’s Drive-In
-Nelson’s Frozen Custard
-Day Farms (Produce)
-Cutsie Cakes

Map of area:

If you’re interested in a showing of the house, please leave a message at

801-896-4408

and we will return your call promptly.

For Rent

Layton, UT Townhome

3 bed/3 bath

1400 sq. ft.

$950.00 per month (includes HOA)

Quiet, tree-lined street in a small community. Flowerbed. 1-car garage with room for shelving.

Entryway/Porch. The door to the left is where the trash can is stored (no unsightly trash cans next to the houses.)

Living/Family Room. New paint and carpet throughout the house. Ceiling fan. All new light fixtures and 2-inch white faux-wood blinds throughout the house. Sliding glass door leads to a small patio and a beautiful back yard. No neighbors behind us.

 

Kitchen/Dining Room. Brand new tile leads from the front door down the hall into the kitchen and dining room.  Fridge with water and ice in the door, stove, and dishwasher included. Chandelier over table and pendant light over sink. Kitchen island is also a bar with room for four stools. New garbage disposal. Pantry. The window by the table looks out to grass and trees.

  

Guest Bathroom on main level. New tile. Washer and dryer closet behind double doors. Washer and dryer is negotiable.

Upstairs is a landing with enough room for a small office workspace. Also has a large storage closet.

Master Bedroom. This is a queen-sized bed and there’s room for a large dresser. Window looks out onto grass and trees in the backyard. 

Master Bathroom. 18-inch tile floor and shower surround. Porcelain bath, updated shower head and fixtures. Curved shower rod for more elbow room in the shower.

 

Second Bedroom.

Third bedroom. Window looks out to a front maple tree.

    

Third Bathroom.

Back yard. Mature trees and shrubs. Beautiful lawn. Lamp posts.

 

Other key features of our community include:

-Swimming pool!!
-Clubhouse (can be reserved for gatherings and parties)
-2 playgrounds
-Lawn care/Snow removal
-Garbage and Water

Area schools:

Ellison Park Elementary (Brand new)
North Davis Preparatory Academy (Elementary charter school)
Central Davis Junior High
North Davis Preparatory Academy (Junior high charter school)
Layton High School

Favorite LOCALLY-OWNED restaurants:

-University Broiler and Grill (Greek)
-C&B Maddox Favorite Chicken
-Pace’s Drive-In
-Nelson’s Frozen Custard
-Day Farms (Produce)
-Cutsie Cakes

Map of area:

If you’re interested in a showing of the house, please leave a message at

801-896-4408

and we will return your call promptly.

Birthday. Boys. Balloons.

Nate turned 5 years old in December. Awesome. Since December is about the craziest time of the year to have a birthday party, we held it a few weeks early and just had a few of his ward friends come over to the clubhouse where we played silly, super creative and complex games that I came up with myself. They included “Throw Socks Rolled Into Balls at Each Other” and “Hit Each Other with Balloons”.  I would go into detail as to how each of these games are played, but they’re just too complicated to get into right now. Then we had cupcakes and played with the toys he received. Success!!

A cute picture his friend Dylan gave him.

Then since his cousins all live in West Jordan/Taylorsville we had a separate party that was just as highly involved. We went to McDonald’s to play in the playland and had ice cream (not even Happy Meals) with just the two cousins his age. Once again, success!! Please don’t think down on me for throwing such awesome parties.

Thanks, everyone, for all his gifts. He’s had such a blast with every single one of them.

Nathan, I’m so proud of you. You’re the best son and brother in the whole world. Your dad, sisters, and I love you VERY much!!

 

These videos are pretty funny and show how much the boys loved the balloon game. We could hardly get them to stop!

Recent Reads

Books

I’ve actually gotten into reading some fiction the last year or so. I never thought that would happen. Here are a few of the good books I’ve read. I’ve pasted in descriptions from Amazon and then wrote something brief about why I liked the book.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Oskar Schell is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to occasionally gimmicky lengths, like a two-page soliloquy written entirely in numerical code. The novel is replete with hilarious and appalling passages, as when, during show-and-tell, Oskar plays a harrowing recording by a Hiroshima survivor and then launches into a Poindexterish disquisition on the bomb's "charring effect." Unafraid to show his traumatized characters' constant groping for emotional catharsis, Foer demonstrates once again that he is one of the few contemporary writers willing to risk sentimentalism in order to address great questions of truth, love and beauty.

 

I was really caught up in this book and couldn’t put it down. Part of the reason was because it was so different from anything I’d ever read before. But I think the main reason I was so intrigued was because the main character reminded me of my nephew who also lost his dad (my brother). I read this book a year ago and I still think about it often.

The Great Train Robbery by Michael Crichton

Lavish wealth and appalling poverty live side by side in Victorian London—and Edward Pierce easily navigates both worlds. Rich, handsome, and ingenious, he charms the city's most prominent citizens even as he plots the crime of his century, the daring theft of a fortune in gold. But even Pierce could not predict the consequences of an extraordinary robbery that targets the pride of England's industrial era: the mighty steam locomotive. Based on remarkable fact, and alive with the gripping suspense, surprise, and authenticity that are his trademarks, Michael Crichton's classic adventure is a breathtaking thrill-ride that races along tracks of steel at breakneck speed.

This was a fun read. Heist stories are always great and I loved learning about the details of life during the Victorian Age.

The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by Harry Bernstein

"There are few rules or unwritten laws that are not broken when circumstances demand, and few distances that are too great to be traveled," about the figurative divide ("geographically... only a few yards, socially... miles and miles") keeping Jews and Christians apart in the poor Lancashire mill town in England where he was raised. In his affecting debut memoir, the nonagenarian gives voice to a childhood version of himself who witnesses his older sister's love for a Christian boy break down the invisible wall that kept Jewish families from Christians across the street. True to a child's experience, it is the details of domestic life that illuminate the tale—the tenderness of a mother's sacrifice, the nearly Dickensian angst of a drunken father, the violence of schoolyard anti-Semitism, the "strange odors" of "forbidden foods" in neighbor's homes. Yet when major world events touch the poverty-stricken block (the Russian revolution claims the rabbi's son, neighbors leave for WWI), the conversational account takes on the heft of a historical novel with stirring success.

Again, I loved learning about the details of life during a different time in history. This is a moving, true account of the author’s life when he was a young boy. It wasn’t about a single spectacular event, just life as he lived it and I enjoyed reading about it very much.

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell

O'Farrell's novel brilliantly illustrates her talent for gradually revealing her characters' inner lives by jumping back and forth in time and juxtaposing different narrative points of view. Iris Lockhart, a young Scottish woman, is suddenly informed that she has the power of attorney for her great aunt, Esme Lennox—who Iris never knew existed. Esme has been locked away in a mental institution for over 60 years—a fact never mentioned by her sister Kitty, Iris' grandmother, who now has Alzheimer's. In compelling prose, O'Farrell gradually pieces together the puzzle of Esme's life up to the age of 16, when her cold and repressive parents sent her away to the hospital that is now closing down. Esme had a bold and independent spirit, unseemly for a girl at that time. That as well as a younger brother who died in her arms and a never-mentioned rape contributed to her lost life—a life "half strangled by what-ifs."

I didn’t like the sub-plot of this story, but the main plot kept me pulled in so much that it became hard to put the book down. Tragic story, good read.

My Brother’s Family

Kaylee Eloise was blessed last month and we got this shot of the cute little girl.

 

Racheal

The sisters

Mark and his wife, Cammie.

We also took a picture of Racheal with her two best-est cousins, Madeleine and Jordin.

Family can see more shots here.

T-Day 2010

Well, New Year’s just ended which means it’s time to post Thanksgiving…

 

 

 

 

Me and Caroline with my Grandma Clark.

 

 

Approximately 1/3 of the grandkids on the Raines’ side.

 

Jacob

 

 

Chase

 

 

Justin helping himself to the ale…I mean…juice on tap.

 

 

Cammie

 

 

Allen enjoying his cup.

 

 

Jordin

 

 

Vance

 

 

 

Racheal opening her treasure.

 

 

Nate and Maddie

 

Grandma Williams with Caroline.

 

 

Kelly with Jess and MoMo.

More family pictures here.

Day at Temple Square

Back in October I took Nate and Madeleine to Temple Square. Cara had just recently been born and the kids were itching to get out of the house.

We took Front Runner into SLC and TRAX to Temple Square. We checked out the visitor centers, played in the fountains, had a snack on the grass, touched the temple, toured the Conference Center, and went to the top of the Church Office Building.

We had tons of fun and will not forget this trip. Click here if you'd like to see the rest of the pictures.