Pictures from July

While we were moving I kept thinking I should be taking pictures.

But I didn't.

So Ammon and Andrew changing out the fan in Ammon's room represents the transition to a new home.

Two years ago we moved on June 30 and by the 4th of July we were exhausted.

I swore to never do it again.

And then I had to eat my words completely.

We moved on the exact same date.

Still, we were able to have a fun holiday.

We spent the morning with my sister in Riverton enjoying their festivities.

That evening, my brother invited us to his house for fireworks.

We live so close to him that we rode our bikes there.

After we came home from his house, we found an awesome neighborhood firework show.

Then that ended, and we ran into some OTHER neighbors doing fireworks.

It doesn't quite feel like a holiday to me when I don't cook.

And I didn't.

Andrew had to work that day, so we didn't even grill.

But it turned out to be a fun day of celebration despite it not quite feeling like a holiday.

We enjoyed a lot of firsts in our new home.

The first time the lawn was mowed,

the first time we used the new grill,

the first time we had people (my parents) over for breakfast,

the first time I made fudgy oatmeal bars.

It was fun to start making this home really feel like ours as we started to really LIVE in it.

As a parent I have had massive library fail.

It is a secret guilt of mine.

I grew up loving to read and I attribute a lot of that to the time my mom spent taking me to the library.

Somehow, in our new home, the library seems more accessible than ever.

The drive is easy and inviting.

We have spent so much time at the library in the last month and it has been awesome!

One evening we went and inadvertently discovered the parrot show.

We have also gone to various libraries for the magician, the reptile show, crafts and more.

It's been a fun change in our lives.

In July we had swimming lessons.
(I'm not sure why I don't have any of those pictures made into a collage yet.)
My niece was in the lesson before us.
Then we arrived and Ammon had his lesson with another niece of mine - the cousin he is closest in age to.

The next lesson was two other cousins from the Shadel side of the family.

After they were done, Peter had his lesson with two more cousins that are his age, and another cousin (the niece of mine who had the very first lesson) who was the class helper.

A time or two we were invited to a swimming party with the Shadel cousins after lessons were over.

I spent one of those afternoons playing with my camera and the baby while the older kids swam.

For the 24th of July we spent the evening with - you guessed it - COUSINS!

Can you tell we are loving being so close to family?

We have gone on group outings and run into my sister-in-law with her kids.

We have driven down the road, only to see my brother driving up the street the other direction.

We have been able to trade kids, have play dates, and help babysit.

It's been a blast!

We are loving our new home, enjoying our neighborhood and ward, and having so much fun being able to spend tons of time with family, and then have the quickest and easiest drive home afterwards!

Despite not having any big trip or vacation this year, July was a fun month!

Finding Our Home

Buying a House part V - continued from Nevermind...

By this point, house shopping had become pretty exhausting, and we were losing our motivation.  We were in a good situation, we loved our neighbors, and I still had another year of school.  Part of me felt unsettled at the idea of staying, but a bigger part of me was really excited and almost even relieved that things were going that way.

We still had e-mails filtering in to us every day letting us know what was newly listed, but nothing really caught our eye.  We went out to see a couple of more houses, but really started to realize that it was West Jordan or nothing for us.  And even within West Jordan we were finding things we just weren't interested in.

One evening we had a batch of about three houses come through, all in West Jordan.  Two of them were split entries, which we hadn't really even looked previously.  One of them didn't even have pictures up, but the location it was in was perfect.  Andrew was about to jump out of his skin with excitement over it since it was Bingham High School territory.  House shopping in West Jordan had meant that we were setting up our kids for going to our rival school.  This resolved that dilemma for him.  To me, the area was a toss up in convenience to my special yellow house.  I didn't have the same concern about raising West Jordan jaguars as he had.  And the house wasn't any closer to my parents home than the yellow one.  The yellow one was newer, bigger, had the same sized lot, and really, at this point I was kind of in a yellow house or nothing frame of mind.  But we talked with Terry to set up showings for us anyway.

We went to the first house and immediately knew we didn't want it.  We weren't fond of the area it was in, and it had a weird, funky smell to it.  That was the rambler.  We went to the second house and it was set into a neighborhood with weird access.  It was a split entry and the condition was poor.  Andrew, Terry and I all left that house muttering, "They are seriously asking that much for THAT?"  And we were down to the third house.  We hadn't seen any pictures, but the posting said it had been updated.  We knew we liked the area, but had no idea what to expect.  And I still just wanted to wait it out and see what happened with the yellow house.  I was in no rush to jump on something.

We started driving - Andrew in one vehicle so he could go to work immediately afterwards, and me in another.  We were driving South on Bangerter - a road I rarely use when I had this overwhelming feeling that  I was driving home.  I couldn't shake the feeling so I called Andy and said, "Do you feel like you're driving home?"  I was strangely excited.  Something felt really right.

We got there and the house seemed very plain compared to my beautiful yellow home.  But it was nice.  We walked in and it reminded me of the home I lived in from age five - twelve.  I have good memories of that house.  The house smelled of new carpet, which was great.  It looked really nice.  The kitchen had been billed as updated, but I could see that the counter top was the exact counter my mom had in her home 30 years ago, so it didn't seem very updated to me.  Andrew is impulsive and I am very cautious.  I was liking what I saw, but didn't want to rush into a judgement.  Andy was walking around squealing with delight at every turn.  He walked into the master bedroom, peeked into the master bathroom and said, "Jenny-girl!  This is YOUR house!"

Based on our previous experiences, we decided we had better make an offer immediately.  But I was still uncertain as to what I wanted.  If we went into a contract on this home, it meant giving up the yellow home.  I had some serious thinking and decision making to do.  We rushed to Terry's office to write up the offer.  He had a limited amount of time as he was on his way to a funeral.  From Terry's office, Andrew headed to work and then I went to my mom's house to tell her about our morning and to talk over the pros and cons of each house.

to be continued...

Nevermind...

Buying a House Part IV - continued from The Perfect House

The day after we were accepted as a back up offer on *my* yellow house, Terry took us out again.  He had one house he was particularly excited to show us.  He felt that it was very similar to the house we loved so much, and the seller had just dropped the price to be more in the range we were looking at.  He had his reasons as to why this house was actually better than the other one and he wanted to know what we thought.

He was right - they had a lot in common.  In the moment, it seemed that there were a lot of pros and cons.  The biggest, most obvious pro was that it was available!  I was reluctant, still having my heart set on that yellow house I was so in love with, but Andrew and I agreed to go ahead and write the offer.  We saw the previous weekend that a slightest delay could cost the sale.

Throughout the day Andrew and I continued to talk.  We felt confident that this house was ours for the taking, but did we really want it?  As the day wore on, our enthusiasm weaned.  Yes, it was among the nicer houses we had considered, but at the same time, it really wasn't what we wanted.  Finally, with a small sense of guilt, we decided to retract our offer.

As it turned out, three other offers had been made that day and ours wouldn't have been selected anyway.  Our arrogance was ignorant, and we really began to see what a tricky market we were dealing with.  My focus began to shift back to staying put for another year.  That was the original plan anyway.  I felt like we could wait and see what might happen with the yellow house, but otherwise, we should just keep our eyes out with the plan to move the following year.

To be continued in Finding Our Home.

The Perfect House

Buying a House Part III - continued from The Search Begins

On the Friday night after we started looking with Terry, I saw a LOVELY yellow house listed.  It wasn't a short sale and the listing indicated that they were priced to sell.  Terry had an obligation the following morning and we had a soccer game for Peter, but we planned to go see the house as soon as possible - Saturday afternoon.  One of our goals in our move was to be closer to family, and though we were trying to keep an open mind to do what was best for us, we really kept coming back to the idea that what was best for us WAS to be closer to family.  We just love having easy access to the people that we enjoy sharing so much of our time with.  This house was not only adorable and beautifully landscaped, but it was in the most ideal location of anything we had looked at.  I was giddy over the possibilities!  I nervously sat through the soccer game, showing pictures to my brother and sister (who each had a child on Peter's team) and anxiously waited for our chance to go see the house.

We went to see it and I was immediately in love.  It was everything I had thought I wanted.  It had great curb appeal and was just adorable.  We LOVED the backyard with a large wooden deck and beautiful trees and paths around the house.  There were some seemingly minor flaws to the house, but I couldn't acknowledge them - I was so set on wanting to buy it.

From the showing we went directly to Terry's office to write up an offer.  We had burst a little above the price range we were shooting for, but we could still make it work.  And for this house, we decided, it was worth it.

But the bad news came.  An offer had been made - and accepted, that very morning.  Still, we could try to be the back up offer because sales fell through all the time.

So that's what we did.  We put in an offer on a house for the first time in our lives.  It took a little while to get everything going.  We had to put down earnest money and sign all the papers.  Andrew was so nervous.  I wasn't nervous at all - it didn't seem real since it was just a back up offer and I was positive I wanted this house if we could possibly have it.

I think this is when the prayers really started.  I was extremely emotionally invested.  There were things that were completely outside of my control.  I wanted what was best for our family.  And so I began to pray fervently that we would be able to progress with confidence and be able to be blessed with the house that Heavenly Father wanted us to have.  I have such a strong belief that Heavenly Father leads us to different places in our lives and that His plan for us is always better than our own plan for us.  I wanted to see His plan fulfilled in our lives and I knew that miracles could happen to make things work out exactly as they should.

The following Monday we learned that we had been accepted as the back up!  That news felt like we were just one step closer to having His miracles fall into place for us.  It was an exciting time and I just continued to pray my guts out.  And while we waited for the situation to unfold, we continued to keep our eyes on the market and to go out looking at the houses that were available.

To be continued in Nevermind...