Change.....it's a comin'

I think it's finally safe to say it out loud. We're in the processe of buying a house and will be moving in the next few weeks. It has been a whirl-wind of a month for us. I want to share the story of how it came to be before I am engulfed in moving preparations and it never gets recorded.

It is no surprise that John and I have been desperate to move. We love our little house but have known from the moment we bought it that we would outgrow it. We bought this house thinking we would be in it 4-5 year. By year 5 we were definitely feeling cramped. Honestly, more than cramped. I shed many tears in frustration when I literally had nowhere to put anything. Literally. I was frustrated that my kids birthday and Christmas gifts were based solely on what would take up little to no space. I hated that I felt like I couldn't buy a kitchen bowl without struggling to find somewhere to put it.  We are currently in year 6 of this house and the space issues just keep staring us in the face.

For some reason I had in my head that I was going to talk to a lender and give them our info just to see if we had any options. Thus far we had never had any options and it was very frustrating. We couldn't sell because we owe WAAY more than our house is worth (like tens of thousands more). We couldn't refinance be cause we were upside down, but more than that because our loan had been bought out by bonds, not by Fannie or Freddy, and it wasn't an FHA loan. Who would have ever thought that a conventional loan would ever be something that would hinder us. We had assumed that renting out our home wasnt' an option because we would have to take a loss on it every month. We also learned that we would have to get special permission from our lender for the home to become a renal due to the specifics of the loan. And on and on and on.  Somehow John and I always seem to make the "smart" financial decision and it always hurts us in the end.  It's almost comical really. 

So one random day last month I opened the phone book, called our credit union, and started running numbers. I was shocked to learn that somehow we would qualify for a new loan in addition to our current loan without having to wait months to show rent as income. At this point I was getting a little excited but realized I still had many hurdles ahead of me. We have some good friends in our ward who are currnetly renting out their old home. It has been a rental for 2 years and I remember her saying a while ago that they were going to have to sell it and that she would sell it to me. It was all a light hearted joke at the time and I brushed it aside and hadn't given it a second thought until that day. I mentioned the idea to John, "What if we bought the Baumgartner's house?"

I called my friend Alison the next day and asked her if they really were selling the home and how much they were selling it for. I let her know what we were thinking and then got to work. We both knew it was a long shot so we weren't really planning on it. Nonetheless, John and I started watchcing the housing marked and going through houses just to be sure this one was the one we wanted.  Turns out it was.  It is a bit older than our current home but it has 900 sq ft more than our house, 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room and a family room, a huge kitchen and dining room, a water softener, a new roof,  a 3 car garage, a basketball hoop, landscaping, and a peach tree :).   And somehow within less than 2 weeks I had our financing in order and permission from our lender to rent out our home. In the meantime the renters in the home we wanted to buy announced that they would be moving out March 1st. That's when the race against the clock began.

There was work to be done in the house. Two of the 3 bathrooms had water issues. The downstairs bathroom had flooded and the flooring was completely ripped out. The master bathroom had broken tiles and the potential for water damage. After much worry and fret and professional inspections everything has been taken care of. Well, sort of, deals have been made as far as who will pay for what :)

And as of yesterday we solidified a renter for our home. A nice woman who has a 9 year old son. Her credit is awful and she is currently going through her second divorce, but then again, everyone that was interested in renting our house was either not making enough money or had bad credit. She had great references, a good stable job, and good income. And she is clean. I feel like I'm handing my child over to her to take care of, so I'm nervous.  But to be honest, I felt good about her from the moment I met her.

And now we enter the stress of moving, re-tiling, repainting, installing, and everything else that has to happen in this home before we can leave and in the new home before we can move in. But the point is....we're doing it. Somehow it's all working out. I feel very blessed. I can honestly say that things just fell into place so easily that I felt like it was all meant to be.  My kids get to stay in the same school, we get to stay in the same ward, and we get more space. 

Random side note: John gets frustrated with me because I get hung up on the areas of the house I want to "fix."  Specifically the laundry room.  I'm like Meri in "Sister Wives."  Her wet bar is my laundry room!  It's sad. 

But most importantly, even if this isn't our dream home, it's definitely a wonderful home that we will love and will be comfortable in for a long time!  Crazy.

Owen recently had his first grade music performance at school.  It was....how shall I put this...entertaining.  At one point I was seriously laughing out loud at Owen and his neighbor and their ourtageously mellow personalities.  Ainsley kept asking me what I was laughing at.  I just couldn't quite explain.  In this first picture you'll notice that Owen gave us a smile and a wave.  This was before any music was being sung. 

If you look for Owen in this next picture you'll discover the face that Owen showed during the ENTIRE performance.  It was almost laughable.  His friend Logan (to Owen's left) was about as animated as Owen.  He made me laugh when he smiled at his parents during an entire song because he thought they were taking his picture (they were taking video) and he just smiled and smiled and didn't sing a word.  Owen remained pretty much motionless.  It didn't help that the little girl next to Owen was possibly the most animated kid up there.

 

Owen even had a little part. He got to come to the front and read a poem. Guess how we found out he had a part? Ainsley came home from school and told us.  (The first graders performed for the entire school during the day and the parents at night.)   Thanks for the heads up Owen!  Seriously though, that kid makes me smile.