Crazy-A Week

We bought a house last week all of a sudden. It's on the same road as A1 & A2's school, and when we walked into it, it felt like it should be ours. We've been sensing impending change for awhile, so it's not totally out of the blue. It's just all happened really fast. Our purchase contract has a closing date of 60 days out, so we had to sell our current house in 30 days at most.

As luck would have it, we had gotten a wild hair the weekend before all this went down, and decided to paint the living room, kitchen, hallway, and master bedroom. We chose light grays/blues to brighten the place up. We also cleaned out our storage room, which had looked like a bomb went off in it for quite some time. Thank goodness we did those things!

We signed a contract for the new house on a Monday, spent the rest of the week getting a realtor, de-cluttering, cleaning and staging the house. We listed the house on the MLS on Saturday. On Monday we had five showings and two offers. Tuesday we had another showing and a third offer. Last night we accepted an offer for more than asking price! Unbelievable!

This is most definitely bittersweet. I feel like I could write an ode to Apple Avenue and a love letter to Harvest Hills. I know we were led here 8 years ago, and have been exceedingly happy. I feel like we have grown up here. We've become actual(ish) adults, and learned so much from our little village. We have had non-stop examples of friendship, service, parenting, and of how to be a good neighbor. We've been in amazing wards where we could serve and mature, and gain stronger testimonies of the Savior and the Gospel. I've had intermittent crying spells over the last two days- crying because I'm sad to leave all we have, and immense gratitude that we've had it. At the same time, I can see the Lord's hand in all of this, and know that it's all working out for a reason. And let's be real- we're moving 5 miles away, not across the world, but you know how it is. New neighborhood, new village, regardless of distance.

Financially, this is a blessing. We bought our house at the peak of the housing bubble, just a few months before the market tanked. As much as we've loved living here, we have been under water in our house nearly the entire time. This is our opportunity to get out of our 2007-era subprime mortgage situation. And the kids can walk to school!

I want to post the pictures that were on the MLS, mostly because I never want to forget how clean our house was for 2 days. I love a clean house, but having to pretend you don't live in your house is pretty awful! Thank heavens we only had to keep up that charade for two days.

Thank you, little house on Apple Avenue. In the words of the late Whitney Houston, "I-eeee-I will allllways looooove yoooou!"

Housekeeping items

Nils started a new job about a month ago. It's a long story. For now, the ending of that story is that he is working for the Church as a front-end developer. It's good. It's good because he gets benefits (WHAT???), a good salary (WHAT???) and can only work 40 hours a week (WHHHAAAATTT???).

So far, I think he's feeling a bit out of his element. This is his first experience working in a corporation, as opposed to small companies where he's the only one that does what he does. He also has to wear slacks, collared shirts, and dress shoes to work, which has been the biggest hardship of this transition. :) I think it would be pretty funny if he showed up to work in a tuxedo one of these days. That way, he could flip his coat tails up, sit down in his cubical and program away. Hilarious! Anyway, this is a great opportunity for him career-wise, as he's learning a whole new skill set.

When our benefits kick in in a couple of weeks, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself! Speaking of which, I just have to mention the fact that we have been unbelievably blessed over the last few years. Not having health insurance through work and having to play the individual insurance game has been one of the most aggravating issues ever. I can't talk about it too much, because steam starts coming out of my ears. Suffice it to say that individual health insurance is a joke. We have gone back and forth between having it and not having it. When Addie broke her collar bone, and it cost us more with insurance than it would have without insurance, we decided to bag it. We haven't had it for a couple of years, and I truly feel like Heavenly Father has watched over and protected us and kept us well. We've had normal sicknesses, ear infections, etc., but nothing major. We've been able to self-pay without any troubles, and we are thankful.

School is going well for the kids. Anders' teacher is a hoot, and has described him as "delicious". Addie's teacher is a dream come true. The previous 4th grade teacher (who Anders had) was pretty notorious for being really hard. After Addie's rough year last year, I was having anxiety dreams in anticipation of her 4th grade year. About a week before school started, we got a letter saying there was a new teacher for 4th grade A.L.L., and she is magnificent. Sigh. So thankful. Aani is having a bit of a challenge this year in Chinese. Her Chinese teacher is from China, so she speaks way faster than last year's teacher. I don't think it's doing much for Aani's confidence so far, but I talk to other parents and know that she's not the only one. Hopefully it will improve as the year goes on. Then there's Ava, who is obsessed with preschool. She loves it, and I'm very thankful for the awesome moms and kids in our little group.

I'm being pretty mean this year about practicing piano and doing homework right when the kids get home. The TV is hardly on, since they all want to play with friends as soon as they're done with those things. We're soaking up the fall weather and enjoying it as much as possible. I've been running outside on days that Ava goes to preschool and loving it.

Life is good and we're a lucky bunch.