This post has been a long time in the making. I've purposely not blogged about our journey towards home ownership for fear that I would jinx us along the way. But now that it's all said and done, and we're happily living at home, I feel like I've got to record how we got to this lovely place.
Thus far in our marriage, Danny and I have rented. It's worked out really good for us. We had an awesome apartment while we were newlyweds and Danny was still finishing school; a place that we remember with happiness and tender feelings. When we graduated and took our first job, it moved us to California. We assumed, since we already had Claire and Sophie with us, that we should go ahead and buy a house. We were all set to go on a house-hunting trip a month or so before we moved, but the finances just didn't work. It was going to be too expensive to go find a house, not to mention the money involved in actually purchasing one! It turned out that renting was once again the right decision for us, as we ended up being right where we were supposed to be. We rented a wonderful little ranch house in Lancaster from a family that are dear friends now, and we loved it there. We assumed we lived there for 5-7 years, and then eventually buy. Well, after living there for just over two years, Danny had the impression that we should start looking for a home of our own. We did, and found one that we were pretty excited about. But the home was a short-sale, and ended up being foreclosed on before our offer was accepted. Which, while somewhat disappointing, turned out okay. It was just a few months later that we found ourselves loading a U-haul, ready to leave California and make our way back home to Utah.
Since we accepted a job and moved home in about a 3 week period of time, it was only logical that we would live with Danny's parents until we could find our own place. We were moving in late November, so we figured we'd start looking at houses in January after the holidays, and that we'd for sure be in a home by April. Best laid plans, right? :) By February, we had two offers in on homes that were short-sales. We literally waited for months to hear whether either of those deals would work. By May, just weeks before Luke was born, we were still living in Grandma and Papa's basement and had just learned that neither short-sale offer had been accepted. We had Luke and brought him home to Papa's house. Not exactly what we had planned on. :) But, we kept looking. We found another home, this one a HUD home, that we were incredibly excited about. We were able to offer asking price, and we thought we had this one in the bag. But an investor came in right before the bid closed and offered more than us, and had cash to back it up. We lost that home, too. This is when Danny and I got discouraged. But what to do? We couldn't live in the basement forever!!
It was during the deal with the HUD home that we found out that we could actually bump our price point up by about $50,000 and keep our target monthly payment. This changed things for us. We were feeling optimistic, and started looking at traditional sales in a higher price bracket. While doing that, we came across another short-sale that we liked, so we made on offer. Just to keep something going. In the meantime, we figured we'd keep looking. We could always withdraw our offer if we found something else. And look we did!
Finally, we came across a perfect house, in a perfect area, with a perfect yard and a perfect kitchen! And it was a traditional sale! After negotiating the offer (which was one of the most emotionally taxing things I've ever done), we had an accepted offer an a close date of August 29th!! More than 30 showings and 4 offers later, we were under contract for our first home! It was going to be a long six weeks until closing, but we were stoked.
Finally, the day came! And though we had been warned that we probably wouldn't actually close on the 29th, the stars aligned and we did! Danny and I dropped the kids off with Aunt Jenny and met our awesome agent, Bob Hill, at the title company. By 5:00 pm on August 29th, we had signed all the paperwork and wired our down payment. We had the keys, though we had to wait for the loan to fund to go actually take possession, which was going to be the next day. At 3:00ish in the afternoon on August 30th, our loan had funded and we were officially homeowners! And it was a very special day, since it was also the first BYU football game of the season! We grabbed the kids and some pizza and headed to the house to get some painting done before game time. While there is plenty of painting that we will get around to, the boys' room was top priority. Danny and I just couldn't sleep Johnny in a pink room! We reinforce gender roles, what can we say?! Danny and the girls got right to work taking down the vinyl decorations the previous owners left.
Luke supervised. :)
Once the vinyl was down, we were ready to call it a day and head home and watch the game. Gratefully, the Cougars were victorious, so Danny was able to happily make it through the rest of the weekend. :) Danny took work off for the weekend and into the next week to get us settled, so we started bright and early on Friday with the goal to have us sleeping in the house on Saturday night. We spent a good deal of the day on Friday painting the boys' room and cleaning the rest of the house, so we'd be ready to move things in on Saturday. We also had plenty of packing to do in the basement. Things always go slower than you think, and we found ourselves painting at a very late hour on Friday night. We finally called it quits at about 11:00 pm, knowing we'd have to paint the last coat on Saturday morning before we moved things into the room. But there comes a point when you're just too tired to move. We were at that point.
After a short night's rest, we loaded the kids up and took them to Grandma Candy's for the day to play. Danny and I figured we could get everything done on Saturday if we didn't have the kids with us. And if I didn't have to stop to nurse Luke. Once again, we had great intentions...just no idea how much there was to do! Isn't that always the way with moving? While Danny and Papa loaded the trailers at the storage unit, I headed back to the basement with Grandma Candy's van and started loading. Grandma Call was kind enough to get that last coat of paint up in the boys' room, and helped me load the van. I made three trips in the van during the day, and Danny and Papa were able to get everything from the storage unit and the big furniture from the basement as well. By late afternoon, we had a house full of boxes!! But it was our house, and our stuff in those boxes, so it was a good thing. Here's a peak at our awesome kitchen, what you can see behind the pile of boxes, anyway. :)
We didn't meet our goal of having everything done by Saturday night, but we did meet our goal of making that our first night in the house. We still had to empty out our bedroom in the basement and move over a few more things, but that was going to have to wait until Monday. We just couldn't move anymore! I slept fitfully on Saturday night (first night in a new house, you know), and before I was ready, Luke was up and hungry. I found myself the only one awake in the early morning, watching the sun rise and nursing my son. I have to say, the view out our windows is amazing!
I guess I can't say I was the only one up. If you look closely, you can see a golf cart in the distance. Some ambitious golfer was up early! Our back yard butts up against the 5th hole of Glen Eagle Golf Course. Guess we're going to have to take up golfing now! :) Anyway, we have 11:00 am church in our new ward, so we were able to take the morning at a more or less leisurely pace. Which was good, since Danny and I were wasted. Since it was Labor Day weekend, there weren't as many people in church as there usually would be. But we felt welcomed, and left feeling optimistic about our new ward. In the weeks since, we've continued to feel welcome and are sure we'll fit in just fine.
We enjoyed our first dinner in our new house, and mostly just took it easy. We still had a lot of work to do come Monday morning! We dropped the kids off, once again, at Grandma Candy's and scrambled to get the last bit of work done. We hauled the rest of our stuff out of the basement, and spent a few hours cleaning so that it would be nice and clean for Julie and Katie to move back downstairs. Finally, on Monday night, we brought the kids home and were all but done with moving. Phew! We got the kids to bed early, especially since Claire had her first day of kindergarten in the morning!
It's been a month since we've moved into our home, and it's taken me about as long to get things even moderately unpacked. There are twice the kids, and twice the stuff, and half the time as there used to be! But, slowly and surely we've gotten it done. At first, I was struggling to feel like it was our home. But, as Danny put it, all we would need was a night up with a vomiting child and a birthday party and we'd be right at home! We've now handled all of that...and some...and we're feeling very much at home. Though it was a rocky road to get here, we feel blessed that the Lord guided us here. It is the perfect home for us, and so much more than we ever hoped we'd be able to get. We're so grateful for Danny's family be willing to deal with us for 10 months, and we were blessed for our time there. Though I don't think it's inappropriate to say that everyone is happy to be where they belong now. :) If anything, we were once again reminded that sometimes it's difficult to see the Lord's hand in your life while He's at work. But if you stay the course, it's easy to look back and see His hand, and your testimony is strengthened for it.
Now that we've unpacked and gotten organized, a photo tour will be coming soon! :)
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