And the Winner is...

Well it happened fast.  Thank goodness!!!  We got an answer on where we're going to live.  And the winning home is....

FRUIT HEIGHTS!

I am so happy!  When Ryan called and told me the bank had accepted our offer, I thought I was going to pass out from joy.   I can't believe it happened so fast.  This house went up for sale last Thursday and our realtor got us right up there.  We put in our offer that night, and it was accepted by the bank Friday afternoon.  I'm not sure why they didn't wait over the weekend and see if more offers would roll in.  I'm not going to complain though.

We were able to go back up and see it over the weekend (actually 3 times over the weekend due to various reasons)  We met the neighbors on either side of us.  Everyone was so friendly and had only good things to say about the neighborhood, the school, etc.  The neighbors seemed super happy to find out that the house was finally going to have someone in it who loved it.  It's a bank-owned house and it's been sitting vacant for a while.  We did learn from the neighbors that our yard has a few problems.  Apparently all of the surrounding neighbors yards run off into ours.  For a minute there we weren't sure if the flooding issues were going to be prohibitive.  Ryan  went up there with the inspector and followed him around asking questions.  He had a few good suggestions on how to maintain the overflow.  We will probably have to put a bit of money into the problem, but the house would still be worth it.

 It was kind of a roller coaster weekend actually. Happy we got the house, sad because we priced out carpet and decided that definately wasn't going to happen anytime soon, happy we met such friendly neighbors, sad again because of the flooding, happy again because the inspector said it wasn't a big concern...  I'm sure there be many more ups and downs before this thing is over, but right now I'm feeling good!

My Very Own College Graduate!

Four years ago when Ryan told me he wanted to go back to school, I hate to admit it, but it almost ended our marriage.  I didn't know how we would manage.  I'm not the easiest-going, most chill girl I know.  I don't like being alone, and the thought of spending endless nights at home alone while Ryan was at school or doing homework seemed so daunting.  How would I survive?

I remember Ryan telling me, "Sarah, the next four years are going to pass by regardless of what I do.  Either I will be just where I am right now in life, or I could get a degree.  Either way time passes."  I thought that was such a stupid thing to say at the time.  But now I've finally realized just how profound he really was.  It seems crazy that so much time has passed.  It was really tough while we were in it, but it doesn't seem like that long ago that he started. 

Anyway... all that aside.  I am so super stinkin' proud of my Ryan.  That was a lot of hard work, endless late nights, countless illnesses from lack of sleep and too much stress.  I wanted to do something really big for him and show him just how proud I was.  Certain circumstances have made it difficult to do anything too extravagant, but here's what the girls and I came up with.  When Ryan walked through the door (of our amazingly fabulous apartment) this is what he saw.

Ryan was really cute.  I think we made his day.  He said thank about a dozen times which is so not Ryan.  He woke up the girls and let them come join in his mini-celebration.  He thanked them all for their awesome job decorating the apartment.

I had taken the girls to Walmart and let them pick out whatever they wanted to give to their dad for his graduation present.  That was really fun.  I had to hold my tongue many times, but I wanted the gifts to be just from them.  Here's the result:

Moving at the Speed of Life

Here's a long over-due update post on the crazy life of the Ellsworth family.  As most of you know, we started to get the itch to move last April.  We looked at building another house in our neighborhood with a little more room and decided to put our house up for sale.  When we put it up for sale we weren't really feeling a rush to sell it.  We thought we'd put it up, see how things went, and if it sold - great!  if not - oh well. 

As time went by and the house didn't sell, I braced myself for the possibility that we weren't going to move.  I was happy in our house, we have super great friends, a great ward...  Well... on August 21st we got an offer on our house.  It was the first one we had gotten, so we were anxious to move on it.  The only problem... we had to be out by the 30th.  That gave us just over a week to figure out what we were going to do, where we were going to go, were we going to build? buy an existing home?  In my mind it was all going to work out perfectly.  We were going to go sign the paperwork and start building our new house a few blocks over.  We were going to move into the apartment complex that was in our ward, we could stay close to friends, the girls could stay at their school, it would be a smooth transition.

Well... as we all know, life loves to throw us a curve ball or two.  We went back to the builder only to find out that they had raised their prices since we talked to them in April.  Seriously?  In this market?  Even if they honored the original prices they had quoted us, it still didn't make sense to pay that much for that house.  The market has dropped too much since April. 

I was actually OK with that at first.  I tried to convince Ryan.  We loved our neighborhood, we love the area, we love the school, we have really great friends... why not pay top dollar for this house?  After all, we were planning on living there until the girls graduate from high school.  Ryan wasn't so easy to convince.  He asked me to please at least look around and see what we could get for the same price.  I was super sad to admit that he was right.  We really could get a nice house for that price.  Especially if we were willing to try to work a deal on a short sale. 

This led to the next part of my perfect plan.  Moving into the apartments in our ward.  I knew buying a short sale could take some time, so I had prepared myself for apartment life.  I called the complex expecting wonderful things to happen.  Negative!  The apartment complex was completely full?  Seriously?  I didn't know that could happen.  No problem, I'll just call the one up the street - strike out!  Maybe the one a mile away - NOPE!  Wow!  Starting to panic.  How about the next town over?  No, no, no, no, no, no!  Every place I called required you rent a 3-bedroom house if you have have 5 people.  Every place I called was completely booked on 3-bedroom apartments. 

It was getting tight!  We had ordered the moving truck, put most of our stuff in storage, but still we didn't have any place to live.  Thank goodness for friends of friends.  A guy Ryan works with was married to a woman who managed a place in South Jordan.  After making over 50 phone calls, and at least 10 drop-bys at various complexes, it was the first place that would take us.  They didn't have any 3-bedrooms, but they were OK if we rented a 2-bedroom.  The gal was super great and worked with, gave us a good rate, and even let us go month-to-month since we have no idea how long we'd be here.  I really really struggled with the idea of moving so far away.  I had to pull the kids out of school (after only having gone 1 day to their old school) and transfer them to a new year-round school.  We were lucky to get D track so the girls only missed about 3 weeks.

So... all of my original plans went out the window.  We weren't building my dream house, we weren't staying in the area, we had to yank the girls out of their home and away from their friends.  I had a few days where I was stuck in my own little pity party asking myself what the heck we had done by selling our house.  Then it was time to go start hunting for a new home.

This snapped me out of my woe-is-me moment.  There are so many beautiful houses in our price range.  We have looked everywhere from Kaysville to Herriman.  Apparently we'll live anywhere as long as we love the house.  Knowing we'll be there for a really long time (and having this be our 4th house) has really helped us know exactly what we were looking for and to screen out anything that wasn't quite up to snuff. 

It has been a long couple of weeks, and I swear if I have to go see another house it might just do me in.  But... here's where we're at.  We decided it was definitely worth it to try and go the short-sale route.  We can get a 4K - 5K sq. ft. house for the same price as a 3K sq. ft. non short sale.   We've put in 4 offers so far and we're just waiting on the bank to do their thing and let us know if they'd like to let us live there.  We have one in on a short sale in Kaysville, one on a short sale in Farmington, one on a short sale in Herriman, and one in on a bank-owned home in Fruit Heights.

Now the trick will be to learn a little patience.  Not something that comes naturally to me! I really don't know exactly what possessed me (the most spontaneous and impatient person I know) to think I could handle waiting.  The other hard part is not getting too attached to any one house.  At any given moment we could hear back that we've been approved for one house and then that's it.  We're locked in.  I definitely have them ranked in my mind, but I am trying super hard not to get my hopes up. 

But let's be honest.  We're talking about me!  I want the Fruit Heights house so bad I could die!  Since it's bank-owned we have no idea what will happen.  We got the first offer in on the house, but the bank may choose to wait for other offers to come in.  I just hope we don't get outbid.  :(

So as far as our mental state - our sanity is teetering on the edge.  Apartment life is hard.  The space is cramped and I'm not loving shushing my kids every time they act like kids.  The girls seem to be adjusting pretty well.  They like their new school a lot and have already made new friends.  Poor Audrey is probably having the hardest time.  She was really looking forward to going to the neighborhood preschool and now she's just home with mom all day.  I really do want to get her in someplace so that she'll be prepared for Kindergarten.  It's just one of those things where I wonder if we'll even be here long enough to make it work enrolling her somewhere.  But then again, if I don't, what if we're here until next Spring?

So many things going on, but we're slowing down and finding a new routine.  Wish us well and keep your fingers crossed for that house in Fruit Heights!  :)