The Move

The kids sitting outside our new house.

June was our super busy, super crazy, super stressful month. Most of this was because of our move. The people who own our old house want to sell it and they wanted us out of it while they try (why, in this market if you have renters you want to kick them out and try and sell an empty house I'll never know, but that's their choice.) This put stress on us. First they wanted us out in March to try and take advantage of the tax credit for first time home buyers that ended in April, but luckily it was determined, thanks to our lease, that we did get to stay through May. As May approached we still didn't have a place to live. Financially we're doing much better than we have been, but the new job we have was just starting to take off and we couldn't afford to move. We kept putting it aside not knowing what to do. I kept praying for some kind of guidance and all I got was to be patient. I hate that answer (I seem to be getting it a lot, maybe it's something I need to work on.) So we waited. We discussed all our options from bad to worse to anything else we could think of but no decisions were made.

Then in early May one of Sarah Kate's friends, Jenna, came over to play. Her dad had gotten a job in Washington state back in November and he had been living there ever since. Jenna, her mom, and 2 siblings had stayed in Idaho to finish the school year and try to sell their house. Now that the school year was coming to a close I asked Jenna what their plans were. She said her parents said their house was never going to sell so they were just going to move to Washington anyway. That's when the idea hit me. I told Kenny he should approach them about renting their house, it was worth a shot right! They thought it was a wonderful idea. Originally the house was going to stay on the market and we'd just show it when someone wanted to see it, but they decided to take it off the market (thanks to the horrible house market we're in) and have us sign a year lease. It was perfect. The answer to my prayer had finally come and our patience had payed off.

There was only one problem. Our new home wasn't suppose to be vacant until the middle of June and we had to be out of our other house the end of May. Not wanting to box everything we own, put it in a storage unit, and live homeless for 2 weeks, we got the number for the people who own our house to see if we could stay in it for 2 extra weeks. Annoyingly they would never answer our phone calls or call us back. We were very worried and getting really bugged. We talked to our landlords (they happen to be our neighbors and are different from the people who own the house) and found out that the owners had recently changed their cell phone numbers. We had been calling their old numbers for over a week. No wonder they didn't answer or return any of our messages. We got their new numbers, they agreed to let us stay, and we were set for our future. What a relief. Now all that was in store for us was finding a way to pay for a move and making the actual move. Sometimes being an adult is not that much fun.

Coming to see the picture Mommy took.

So the time came in the middle of June for the move. We actually moved just a few houses away which I thought would make for an easy move, but didn't really. When people normally move they box up their belongings for weeks before the big day. We didn't do this and it made the actual move seem to take longer. The people in our new house ended up getting out a day and a half early and so we had 4 and a half days to move. We went a little long, but luckily the owners of our old house were very understanding and in no real hurry to have us out. We started the move the night of June 14th, spent our first night in the new house the next night, and were finally done with everything very late on June 24. It was crazy, but I'm glad it's done.

As far as the move itself goes, it was exhausting. As I look back on it I honestly don't know how we managed. Kenny was trying to still work the week of the move which didn't leave much time for the move. I was surprised at the limits the pregnancy put on my ability to do things. I'm the type of person who likes to dive in and do things myself, I hate asking for help, but I quickly learned there was a lot I simply couldn't do. I still did more than I probably should have, but I wasn't able to do all I wanted to. Luckily we're surrounded by wonderful people who came to our rescue. My mother-in-law came up for a day to help us move, she did a lot of cleaning of the old house and it was very appreciated. Being in a new ward I didn't know the new relief society president, but when she heard of our move she jumped at the chance to help us. On Friday we had half a dozen or more women, most of whom I had never met, cleaning our old house. This was such welcome help because by that time I was so dead I didn't know how I was going to get that house clean. They finished the entire house in a few hours. I don't know what I would have done without them.

The view of our old house from our front yard. Our old house is the second house from the corner.

We were pretty much cleaned out of the house on Friday the 18th (this was the day we were suppose to be out) but we did have a few other things left over to move. The garage still had some things in it, mainly the wave runner. Annoyingly, the wheel on the wave runner had broken and we couldn't find a replacement part. No place in Idaho Falls sold the size of piece we needed so we didn't know how we were going to get it out of the garage. We were allowed to keep the wave runner in the garage for another week until we could figure out how to move it. After trying to find the right part, Kenny finally figured out how to make the old piece work enough to get it moved to our new house. So the night of the 24th we spent a few hours getting the wave runner working and out of the garage. It was a relief to have it done and over to our new house. We left for Kenny's family reunion the next morning and it was nice to know the move was over.

As far as the new house goes, we absolutely love it. It's a lot like our old house, but slightly bigger with a much better layout for our family. We put Ben and Sarah downstairs in the big bedroom and ended up putting Gracie and Hannah downstairs as well. I was a little unsure about this at first, but the little girls seem to love it and there has been no problems thus far. This allowed us to move the office upstairs which has been wonderful and has made the room a lot easier to use. Considering a lot of the work we do is from home, an office is important. Daniel currently has his own room, but that'll change when his little brother arrives. Kenny's sister Karen got new furniture for her sitting room and they donated their old couch and love seat to us. It was a welcome addition and has really helped make our house a home. We moved our old couch, which we hated, downstairs in the playroom for the kids, and left the couch and love seat upstairs. Without them our bigger family room would have looked really bare. Thanks Karen and Cory.

Hannah looking at a horse in our back yard.

What we get too see when we look out our back windows!

What else is there to love about our new house? The yard is significantly smaller than our old yard, but it backs up to a pasture instead of someone else's yard and house. I didn't realize how much I would love the view of horses out my back window. Now we see at least a dozen horse, 2 cows, hills in the distance and lots of windmills on the hills. It's so peaceful and I've decided my dream property would back up to nothing but pastures and views of mountains. I absolutely love it and the kids have really enjoyed the horses in the backyard. You can literally see our old house from our front yard and the kids have gotten a kick out of this. I love the location of our new house. It's right at the T in our neighborhood so the cars are all going slow to make the turn. I don't worry about the kids riding bikes at this house like I did at the other one. Also, their friends are closer and I can generally see where they're playing. It has made a huge impact not being so isolated on the road leading into the neighborhood. The kids have loved summer and being able to see whose outside to play with. Overall, it was a good move and I'm so grateful we were able to make it. If all goes well I can see us being very happy here for years to come. Sometimes I look at my life, stress and all, and I'm just amazed at how lucky I truly am.