progress.

Our builder, Matt Swyt of Alluring Homes,  is building our home in record time and the quality is wonderful.  He sends us a picture every week of the progress.  The picture above is the one he sent us at the end of last week.  The pictures below are the ones he sent us in the middle of this week.  He just sent us an email saying that the rough plumbing and HVAC are being completed. 

At first we were on a time table to have our house sometime in October.  Then it moved up to September.  When we received our contract info it said that our home was going to be done at the end of August.  We talked to Matt a little later and found out that it will be done at the beginning of August. 

I'm so excited to get to be part of the process from a distance with Matt sending us pictures each week.  Our house just seems to be going up so quickly, it's fun to see!

I can't wait to get out there and see it in person.  We're moving from an 1800 square foot house to a 2700 square foot house with a sitting room upstairs and all kinds of fun stuff.  The land is a 1/2 an acre mostly filled with a forest in t he back, which is just what we've wanted in a yard for the kids. 

fun. LIFE.

fun. LIFE.

Here are some clues about where I am and what I'm doing here:

*I'm not in Utah

*I had to fly to get there and it didn't have a movie on the flight

*I'm staying at one of the nicest hotels ever

*The details here are wonderful...fruit flavored water, notes, robes...oooo! I LOVE it!

*I see water

*I'm with some of my favorite people

*We're up to something super cool....

Tell me your guesses in the comments.

last chance.

Make sure to contact the studio right away and get your wedding, lifestyle family, high school senior session, baby, get to know you shoot,or any other session scheduled as soon as possible.  I have a few dates open before I leave.  You'll want to make sure that you get on the calendar.  I'll be moving the second week of July so we'll only take sessions until the end of June and it's filling up very quickly!

Contact the studio and Jessica will get your session scheduled.  ( info@davinafear.com )

real. LIFE.

new. home.

So there it is....we are moving to Clover, South Carolina.  It's a little town in the Charlotte, North Carolina metro area.  So...that means that Ingrid (email me as soon as possible!) was the first to guess the closest to where we are moving.  She wins a $100 IKEA gift certificate!! 

THIS IS OUR HOUSE.

Yes...this really is our house.  We're moving to a piece of dirt.  It's so strange the life works, the way it moves, and the way it does something that is completely unexpected.  As many of you know, because you've been following our home search, we looked at a lot of homes.  You voted and gave us wonderful thoughts, advice, suggestions and so much more.  We appreciate it immensely! 

I went out to North Carolina pretty convinced that we would, by a miracle of some kind, be able to find my dream house (the 100 year old renovated home in a great neighborhood with fabulous schools).  Every old home we looked at was in a delapidated neighborhood with schools that were even worse.  Needless to say I was pretty disappointed to walk away from those homes.  I also knew that I didn't want my kids to go to schools that were ranking 1 and 2 out of 10 on test scores.  It was a difficult decision but one I knew I had to make for the future of my kids' education.

That decision left us with 5 homes...one of them was my absolute fave but was way too far out of our price range.  It goes without saying that the seller couldn't meet what we were able to pay.  Of the other two homes one went under contract the day before we decided that it was on our finals list and the third home was going to have a freeway built next to it.  Huge bummer.  I was feeling pretty discouraged at that point knowing we had less than 48 hours left to figure this house thing out.  We only had two homes left on our list.  We knew that one of them could work and the other one we had remembered was too small.  Neither of them felt like THE home when we had walked into them.  We were hoping on a second walk through one of them would feel like the one. 

I went out to North Carolina really believing that I would walk into a home and would just love the one that we needed to move into.  I'd hoped I would feel really good about at a home and all other homes would pale in comparison.  Was that too much to ask?

At that point on Saturday morning I hadn't felt really good about a house except about the home that was beyond what would could afford.  We went to the leftover two houses on our list.  I went into the first house and we talked and talked as we walked through it.  We discussed every detail of how we could fit into this home.  It was beautiful and open and I was almost talked into it...until we walked out in to the back yard.  Then I didn't like the house.  The yard was close to other neighbors and didn't have one single mature tree in the yard, no fence, no porch...nothing.  I also had it in my mind that I was moving from Utah where I couldn't get hardly any trees to grow in my yard to a yard that would have an enormous amount of gorgeous trees.  Big strike against that house.

We drove down the lane to a brand new house.  We walked around the lot and it was gorgeous!  There was a grove of trees behind the house the led into a green space area (we don't have those in Utah...they are places that they zone for leaving green and undeveloped...ever).  We LOVED the lot.  Although this had happened a number of times.  We would find a gorgeous lot only to walk into the house and have it be way too small or way too trashed.  Or vice versa...a gorgeous home on a lame lot.

We held our breath as we went into the brand new home.  It was beautiful and the details were so nice!  It wasn't big enough!  Huge bummer.  We went back outside and walked around, saw that the other lot was for sale and hoped it had the same builder.  We looked at one last home that our amazing realtor set up for us (she was quite the patient person taking us around on a whirlwind tour of homes in the area...Nicolette Wiggham.)  As we sat in the sunroom of the next home totally disappointed that yet again it was a house that was not big enough for our family we finally smiled.  We had just spoken with the builder of the brand new house.  He had said that he was planning to build on the other lot, didn't have a buyer for the property, and was just starting the plans.  We were so excited.  He had answered a lot of our questions.  We talked about the possibiliites and finally felt like we had found THE house...we just never walked through it.  We are so excited to be working with Matt Swyt of Alluring homes.  He's a custom builder who does beautiful work.  We can't wait to get the ball rolling with him.  We've aleady been talking about the plans for the house and were thrilled to have found a 1/2 an acre of yard for our kids that opens up into wild land (check out the view that we'll have from our future bathroom).  We finally found something that will work on all fronts. 

When we went to check out the schools for the kids and the church we'll be going to it just confirmed to us that Clover, SC is the place for our family. 

The school that the girls will go to has a class size of 20 or less, they get the option at lunch time to eat in the cafeteria (can you believe how awesome their cafeteria is?  mine didn't look like that when I was growing up!) or outside, the technology in the classroom was amazing, the principal knew every person and child that we passed in the hallway during our tour, the teachers are wonderful, and so much more!

Emmett's school has a gifted and talented program at the school (currently we drive him to a school 20 minutes away for his program), it has band, choir (that has won state for three years running), a science club, lego team, newspaper, and photography club.  They have art every week (they don't have art at all here in Utah) and music every week.  There are so many exciting things about this adventure.

The skies were dramatic and pretty while we were there and I couldn't stop taking  pictures of them.  It's incredibly green and just driving down the road is an experience in nature. 

We are going to miss Utah very much.  We have so many people here that mean so much to us and who have cared deeply about us.  To you, please know that we cherish and treasure the blessing that you are (and will hopefully continue to be even though miles will separate us...) to us.  We have been so blessed by your lives and by your hearts.

adventure. LIFE.

the studio staff.

The other day we had our staff meeting and then went out to lunch together. On our way back from grabbing something to eat I caught a shot of each of the girls who work with me. They are around to help you out while I'm out of town...

Studio Manager: Jessica. Jessica just joined us and has been wonderful from the get-go! She is patient and very knowledgeable. She catches on quickly and she is a doer. I'm so excited to have her working with us. She keeps up a very optimistic and happy attitude.

Accounts Manager: Stefanie. Stef has been manager our records for a while now and I could not ask for someone who is more invested in the state of the studio. She is always thinking big ideas and long term vision. I appreciate her!

Associate Photographer and Second Photographer: Johanna. Johanna is so laid back and sweet and patient. She also works hard to get the image that she wants. There have been many times I've been very happy to see her doing whatever she needs to in order to get the shot. Plus she's just super fun to have around!

great. LIFE.