Moving

Figure I need to document this part of our lives. It's kind of a weirdish, random, developing story. Around Thanksgiving time Harvey was begging for friends to play with. Which he always does. And it really wasn't a good time to be even making any sort of judgements about friends in the area - because it was right after the Mayor said we needed to stay home for  a couple weeks and limit any social interactions. And it was Thanksgiving week - when people are busy with their families. But...regardless...it started me thinking that there really aren't a lot of kids in the neighborhood. None that are in our ward in this part of our little annex. Some kids that are up a little but he doesn't go to the same ward or school as them and rarely plays with them and to me he feels like an outsider with those kids. Then I started thinking that when he goes to Junior High - he won't hardly have any friends cause he'll be going to a completely different school than all the kids he went to elementary with...except Crew. And maybe some more. Who knows. I just started projecting a lot of what if's about the future. Again with church - no kids his age really in the ward - I worried what would happen when he turned 11/12 and didn't want to go to YM stuff because he didn't have any friends in the ward. And even if we went to the school we were supposed to, it's still not the same as the rest of the ward...just with how the boundaries are. Soooo....I mentioned to Tanner that maybe we really should look into moving now. While they are still little and we can find a place with more kids and closer to good schools that they can grow up and church and school with all the same kids nearby. And so it began. The snowball was pushed and it has definitely picked up speed and size and chaos. We had a TON to do to our house to get it ready. So the project checking off started. Lots of help from my dad and Tanner's dad. We repainted the whole house too. After fixing up the basement spare room and redoing all the trim downstairs. We got new appliances downstairs too. 

And really the kids have been champs through all this. Mess, don't touch this, packing up all their toys, etc. etc. etc. It's been so hard for everyone. 

So...we started looking at all sorts of options.  Our realtor got us hooked up for searching new houses from Farmington to Pleasant View. We actually got on a wait list for a house with Visionary Homes in a neighborhood we fell in love with. I thought that was it and nothing else would be the right thing. (That has since happened about 10 times since then...I'm annoying). We've looked at building through several other places, put an offer in on a house being built in Syracuse that we both loved, etc etc etc. We found a development in a neighborhood we were going to try and build with Castle Creek Homes and one day I decided to drive up and look around. They had a couple other for sale signs in the development and I ended up calling them. One lady answered and we got talking. They owned a few lots in that development that they hadn't sold to Castle Creek and they did custom home building. To shorten the story, we decided to go with them. We picked a SUPER amazing lot - .5 acres in a cul de sac in that neighborhood we love. And we picked a plan and went through all the process of making changes and meeting with engineer and bidding out the plan. It came back last week FAR FAR FAR above what we were all expecting so it has been kind of a bummer deal. Currently I feel like we are almost back to stage one - trying to decide if we pick a different plan and still build or try and buy a house already built. Prices are INSANE right now. So it's not that much more to build...except you don't get a finished basement or landscaped yard, etc. It's so hard and stressful knowing what to do and what's right. Ultimately the purpose for wanting to move still is the same - have a good neighborhood filled with more kids and a good school where kids can grow up. That could be 1000 different places. So financially it's hard to know what's best and I'm basically overwhelmed with everything. Anyway....that's about where we are at now. Steff came to take pictures of our house last Tuesday. We got it listed that Thursday and then put it on KSL and had an open house Saturday. I expected more traffic and more offers/competition. Didn't get even one offer from that. So it went into the MLS on Monday of this week and we are doing another open house this Saturday. So all the things are crossed in hopes of some good offers. Sometimes I think there's no way we'll get what we asked ($530K) and sometimes I think we are asking far too little - with how little there is on the market and what other places are going for. Guess we'll just see what happens. And I'll keep trying to trust and relax. I'm not good at either. 

But I needed to put these pictures in here to always remember this house. I really have loved it (and now that it's painted and fixed up and so nice...it is kind of hard to leave). And we've been SO focused on getting it ready to sell and get through this process that I haven't stopped to think much how sad I'll be to leave it and all the memories behind.