Moving...

So I haven't posted a lot about moving because it is still a sensitive topic for me.  So I'll just start from the beginning... There are lots of reasons that we decided to move and I feel like Heavenly Father was aware of our needs and wants and HIS hand helped us all along the way. After Connor's kindergarten year was not a good experience, I started to really research schools on our area. I grew up moving a lot and my parents always based the house they bought on the best schools in the area. Test scores certainly are not everything, and I KNOW that very smart and successful people come from many different educational experiences ( I don't want to sound snobby to my friends who have amazing kids in all sorts of schools), but I guess in the back of my head, the way I was raised comes back to me and I wanted the best schools possible for my kids. I had no idea we would stay in Olympia for this many years and figured I'd like to get us settled where we wanted to be while the kids were fairly young. Our lovely Countryside neighborhood was slowly having more and more foreclosures, short sales, renters, and people walking away from their houses. All of these factors are not so good for home values.  We also found out that we were expecting #4 at the end of the summer which meant we really needed one more bedroom at least. 

So... after much prayer, thought, and research, we slowly began to look for houses starting back in March. Since the move was not a must, we were quite casual about looking. We had a very specific area and school we were open too, and there was not a lot available, so we just took our time. In July we found a house that we thought about offering on, but because we had not sold our house a real offer was not  a possibility. I don't regret not getting that house, but it was a good experience to finally get us to get our house on the market. We only had a handful of people come and look. I frankly, was not very hopeful. Ryan said that we should leave it on the market through September and then pull it off, and I agreed.  

We started the kids in school and a few days later got a pretty good offer that we felt like we should accept. An interesting side note is that the Sunday before we received that offer Ryan was going to teach a lesson on tithing in church.  We always pay our tithing in full, but are kind of sporadic about when we pay. Before we left for church he insisted I look at our bank account, figure out how much we owed and then pay. I argued and said, "I'll do it later-let's just get to church." He insisted again, so I did and we paid it. A day later we got an offer. A testimony builder of paying tithing for sure!  I cried as we signed our papers because I LOVED our house, neighborhood, and ward, AND we had NO WHERE to go yet. I envisioned us selling my home of 9 years where I had raised our babies and being homeless. (Yes...I was pregnant and hormonal!) 

So to backtrack...way back in March-I was at a playgroup in a neighborhood of a friends house. A girlfriend there is a realtor and she offered to show me a vacant house in the neighborhood. I went and liked it enough to make another appointment to bring Ryan back to see it. It was the very first house we had ever looked at. After seeing that it was 15 years old, needed some updating, and was overpriced, he thought we should pass on it. I thought he was right.  A while later it wasn't on the market anymore, and I never thought twice about it. Well, the day we signed our mutual agreement on our old house, that same house went back on the market, but for $50,000 less. We knew right away that this was the house for us. Ryan had really come around after house hunting for 5 months and seeing what was available, and realized this was a great opportunity. We were able to get an offer accepted the first day it was on the market again, with 5 or 6 offers that came in hours after ours.  Phew! I came to love the house even more. It has everything we need, our first choice school,  4 bedrooms plus an office that could be a bedroom, 3 full baths, and a back yard big enough for our growing family to play in. It has a 3 car garage that we hope to build a bonus room over someday too.  After 2 weeks in school for Connor and 1 week for Sadie, we switched them to their new school. It was a lot of driving for the month, but worth it to get the kids settled. They both got great teachers and even had friends that they already knew in their classes.  Another tender mercy for sure!

 We were so blessed to have Ryan's parents come and stay with us for most of the week that we were moving. We were able to close on Wednesday and move in officially Saturday so we had time to move the small stuff over slowly. Connor needed a lot of care that week because we was recovering from surgery. I feel like Anette and I took care of kids, while Mark and Ryan moved stuff. It worked well. We could not have survived the move or surgery with our Mark and Anette. Ryan was able to gather some friends and a moving truck Friday night to move the big stuff over to the new house.  Saturday we finished up at the old house and the kids and I went to hand over the keys. It was AWFUL. I cried sooo hard driving away. Who knew how attached I was??  Eliza kept asking to go "home" the first few days we were in the new house. So sad! (Did I mention I HATE moving?) :) 

I am happy to say that we are getting settled, making new friends (and keeping the old since we are only 10 minutes away), and feel very blessed to be where we are.  The kids are liking their school and ward. I am liking our new routine. A few weeks after we moved in, Ryan's work announced major lay offs to come. I was stressed about a possible pay off, but never felt like the move was a mistake. If we did have to move, I feel like we could easily sell. We even had a realtor come by and say that he had clients that would like to buy our house if we would be willing to sell! It is a good feeling to know we did the right thing for our family. It doesn't make the change less difficult, but it does make me feel at peace.  

A sad goodbye...

Lots of Happy Times at this House!!

Here is our new home!