This post has been long overdue!

This post has been long overdue!

I have been getting a lot of comments and emails from people about our move.  You are wondering why we decided to move.  You are wondering if we moved yet.  You are wondering where did we live the past several months and so on.

I am here to share our story….......finally!

It all started in July when my husband and I were driving around our town’s “downtown”!  We do this sometimes.  We are head over heels about the historical downtown of this city.  They have the cutest shops, restaurants, bike trail, trees, library, parks, river, the train station, and the most amazing homes.  A lot of the homes are over a hundred years old, which I think is fantastic!!  Some are original, some have been renovated, and some are new.  It’s a great mix but my favorite thing is that each home has so much character!!  You never see two houses alike.  The trees are mature and it has a special “feel” about it. 

When my husband and I bought our first home,  we had decided that it was not our “forever” home.  We always said that we would re-evaluate in 5-8 years.  It was a great house that we had built in a new semi-custom neighborhood but it was not our home.  We never had that feeling about our neighborhood like the way we felt when we were “downtown”. 

Scott and I love to dream!!  We will often talk about our future goals, plans, ambitions, and dreams even if others think they are unattainable.  There is no harm in dreaming, right?  Don’t get me wrong; we were extremely blessed to have the house we did.  We built it when we were 23 years old and lived there for 5 years and had Matthew there. 

We had a nice new home and great neighbors, but still we would find ourselves driving around with the kids after grabbing a cone of homemade ice-cream from our favorite downtown ice-cream shop dreaming about living around there.  We would have fun looking at the homes, picking out our favorites, and imagining what it would be like it live there. This might sound totally strange to you but that’s what we did.  We actually narrowed it down to our favorite couple of blocks that we liked the best.

Well, back to that day in July that I was telling you about.  We were driving around talking and wondering and we had a huge pull toward moving there.  We actually felt that “pull” several other times but we never found any house that felt right so we never acted upon it.  But this time was different.  After we got home that night, we put the kids to bed and raced to the computer.  We cozied up on the couch and searched for homes online.

We came across one that we loved!  It looked absolute perfect for us and was in the exact location that we wanted.  It had the old fashioned look but had new updates.  Actually, it was a hundred-year-old home that someone had re-done and added on to.  It looked too good to bed true especially because we could kind-of afford it. (It was still steep for us but it looked like it should have been way more.)  So we kind of brushed it off thinking there was a problem with it.  Well, I went to bed dreaming about it and I couldn't wait to wake up and see it online again.

That morning, I woke up, grabbed my computer and looked at it again while I was still in bed.  I couldn’t stop myself.  Then, I noticed that it was a short sale.  I didn’t know it was a short sale the night before but that made sense to me as of why we could afford it.   I told Scott about it and shared my feelings and he said he had the same feelings so I contacted the listing agent for more info and received a call from the realtor within minutes.  I was shocked.  It was a Saturday morning and we were getting ready to eat breakfast and the realtor said she could show it that day so we decided to meet her there after Michael’s baseball practice.

We went to see the house with all four kiddos. Let’s just say that the kids made themselves right at home, lol!  They loved it. We loved it!  We did realize that we were crazy, but then again we get that, “We are so crazy!  Why are we doing this?” feeling all the time, haha!  Seriously, we are not normal people but we enjoy being different and we hate following the crowd.  We actually aim to be opposite of most people.

After we saw the house, all we could do was think, talk, research, and pray about it.  That “pull” just kept getting stronger so we hired our babysitter and went to look at it again that Tuesday night.  We needed to look in peace. (Aka: without kids)  We still liked what we were seeing so we gave her an offer!  Ekkk!!  We were so excited but because this was a short sale, we didn’t know what the bank was going to say or how long it would take or anything else like that.  I know, we are crazy!

All we knew now was that we needed to sell our home so we could buy that one.  We had the realtor come over that week to list it.  We made a list of everything that we needed to do to sell our home, did them, and showed the house as much as we could.  It was NOT easy cleaning before showings.  I needed a 2-hour notice before each showing and would clean until I sweat each time.  I wanted the house to be perfect.  I would turn on each light in the house then I took all four kids in the van and drove somewhere.  I felt insane after each showing.

Our old Home Tour

Well, we sold our home after 2 months of it being on the market.  We did come down in price but that is the economy now.  There was only one problem now.  Our house was sold but we were still waiting to hear back on the approval of our offer.  (That is typical for short sales I guess.  They should be called long sales because they take forever!) 

Now we needed a place to live.  Yes, this story gets crazier, doesn’t it?  We were really hoping that the bank would of accepted our offer by now but they didn’t so we had to find temporary living.  We looked and looked but renting is hot right now so it was really hard to find anything, especially for a family of 6 that didn’t know how long they would need it for.  Fortunately, a friend of a friend had a vacant home just two blocks from the home we were buying that was willing to sign a 4-month deal.  Amazing, right?  We jumped all over that and we were moved out before the closing of our old house.  That was actually really nice because we did not have to move on closing day. 

Anyway, we closed on our home in October and waited to hear back from the bank while we lived at the rental.  Our rental home was a nice old home but it was not meant for a family of 6.  We were crammed!!  We brought a lot of our stuff with us since we were not totally sure about how long it would be but we did put seasonal items, garage things, decorations, and extra furniture in 2 huge Pods. 

Things were not easy living at the rental!  Scott worked and traveled a lot, we had a new baby, Scott started his MBA, the kids had school, gymnastics, art classes, my business was growing, we traveled to Mexico (I will share pics soon.)  we had Halloween, All-Saints Day (big deal at our school), Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc,.  So, you can now see why I didn’t blog about all this….no time!  I wanted to spend any extra minutes with my kiddos!!  They were surprisingly great about the whole thing.  They were excited and we including them in the whole process.

Well, toward the end of November, we found out that everything was approved and that we were closing within the week!  I know…crazy again!  I mean, come on.  The make us wait and wait and then we close just like that with pretty much no warning at all. 

So then, we finally closed!

YAY!  I felt like that took forever!!!

We decided to take advantage of the situation and do some home repairs and painting before we move in.  (Since it was empty and all!)  My husband worked like crazy.  Yes, we had an inspection done but there was a lot more “fixing up” than we realized.  We figured that is just part of buying an old house. 

Taking longer than expected, we did a lot of behind the scenes kind of stuff like electric and drywall work. It was hard managing our new home and rental so we decided to move in and finish the rest while living here.

We figured moving during Christmas break made sense since the kids and my husband had off.  So we celebrated Christmas Eve in a rental that was half packed up and made the best of it.  Actually, we had a lot of fun together and then we went to my Mom’s house on Christmas day, which felt very normal!

My sisters and Mom came and helped me finish packing on Dec. 28^th and my brothers and our friends came and helped us move in on Dec. 29^th.  We will be unpacking for a while I think.  The kids are super excited and are still going to the same school since it’s a private one.  I can’t image doing all this in a new town or state.  We don’t ever want to move again!!  That was rough but we made it through just fine.

I will show you more pictures of our home soon.  Right now, I am getting ready for my Mother-in-Law to come and stay here for 10 days and working on our BodyTurnaround Challenge.

It’s funny how this whole thing worked out.  Scott and I were talking about this past year (2012) and we would never of imagined that we would of gone through all this at the beginning of the year.  We are hoping for a little less stressed and simple year in 2013 but we are happy, healthy, and motivated for another year together!

So, that is why you haven't seen me lately, lol!  I will post regularly again after my Mother-in-Law leaves next week!

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Happy New Year!

Bonnie