Long Awaited Pictures

We close on the 6th, she has 2 days to move, so we will be moved in on the 9th. As to weather or not the movers will be here on the 9th or the 15th, well we are still in negotiations.

We are very much out in the country. But we are right near the freeway and a huge new shopping center is being built about a mile from us. There are 2 HUGE wards in the area, and it is only about 5 miles to the building. We really feel like we have been drawn to this area and are going to like living here very much.

Front viewStanding at the garage, looking down to the street. Pretty sweet that we have our own little lane hu?Another view of the front, on the left.To the right, this is the only level area of land. And the largest spot to mow. Perfect place to park Mom and Dads RV when they come to visit. Back side of the house, 2 decks. In a year or 2 I want to enclose them and make a sun room addition to the house to be used as the dining room. Oh and the little guy is the inspector.Back yard, the whole lot is just under an acre and it is all wooded. I am expecting we will have some fun wildlife. There are lots of retaining walls and existing landscaping too.To the left of the Garage in the basement is a big storage room. This will be a storage/craft room. It has doors into the garage, as well as into the playroom. Currently this room is the lady's workout room/shrine to Racing/the Braves. We will be using it as a play room and we will also have our elliptical and a couch down there. The basement is just the storage, playroom and garage.
Other side of the playroom. The florescent green will be one of the first things to get painted.
Front of house bedroom, will be the guest bedroom/office/sewing room.

Back of house bedroom, girls bedroom. The orange will be painted light purple before they move in.
Master bedroom, over garage. Small walk in closet and big 2nd bathroom.
Master Bath. Isn't anything special other than it has a 2nd bath so we don't have to share with the girls. It is L shaped.

Video of the front room. Sorry for the camera tricks and having to stand on your head. Not quite sure what was going on there.




Video of the kitchen. I will be changing the curtains, way to busy for my taste. It is about the same size as our kitchen in Utah was. But it has more cupboard space and a pantry thingie. Also the walls are burgundy not the orangy red that is pictured.

The laundry is in the upstairs hallway. We are excited to move in. It is a very nice house, not our dream house, but it is nice and suits our needs all the same.

Update

Well, we put an offer in on a property yesterday and it needed all new carpet and all new appliances. So we asked for a carpet allowance and appliance allowance along with closing. After we put the offer in we came back home and looked up the sex offender registry and found out 3 doors down there was a registered, not convicted, child molester. For child molestation with juvenile female, 3 years ago. So when the counter came back this evening and they were not going to give us a carpet or appliance allowance, even though there were huge holes in the carpet and the appliances were rusted, it wasn't hard to tell them sorry and withdraw the offer. We are in the process of writing up another offer on another property this evening. It is a really nice home, but a little on the small side for what I was hoping for. But it is on an acre so there is room to add on in the future. So we shall see.

As far as our stuff, well we found out a few days ago that it has been unloaded somewhere in Long Beach for storage. NO clue where, or if it is secure or not. But hey they numbered everything so if something is missing then we won't have a clue what it is, but know that it is missing. Yeah, still not happy about the wonderful movers. But it is going to be sweet revenge when they have to move all of our things up all the many stairs if we get this house.

75 houses later...

So after touring literally about 75 homes in the last few weeks I find myself kinda discouraged. So many homes, but none of them are right for our family. Some come really close and we have actually wanted to put bids on 2 of them, only to find out they are already under contract. Several others fit the bill, but need TONS of work before we can move in. I actually asked the realtor today if we are being realistic with what we want for what we can afford. She said we were, but probably are going to have to sacrifice something weather it be the yard, the basement or bigger kitchen. So far I haven't had "that feeling" with any of them. Only with an area, which is out in the country. King J and I talked this evening about the possibilities that I found today and decided that with all of them we feel like we are settling, and we don't think that is right. It is just so frustrating to be this far into this move and still not have a place to call home. Thank goodness we still have time, and family that loves us enough to put up with us. Thanks for all of your prayers and thoughts in our behalf.

I am here, and in one piece

So I just woke up from a 4 hour nap, I think I could have just slept right on through the night. My body was finally relaxing from all the stress last week brought with it.

Friday evening, after I finished shampooing and cleaning out the house, and said goodbye to so many of you throughout the day, I just stood in the hallway and bawled my eyes out. What an incredible 5 years we have spent in that home. I just prayed through the tears thanking Heavenly Father for all the memories we had made there and how our family had grown in that home. For all the friendships that had developed and I also prayed that the new family would love and take care of it as much as we did. I know kinda silly to be so attached to a home, but honestly it was hard to stand there with it empty, and my heart feeling so empty because we were leaving so much behind. Yet a new adventure and chapter in our lives was about to begin. Saturday morning King J and I both woke up refreshed and ready for what was looming in the horizon.

I was SO grateful that the horrific experience with the movers was partially over. Let me just recap it a little bit. First of all, in our contract from our employer it stated that we would have movers who would come out to survey our belongings well in advance of our move. A moving company wasn't even decided upon until last Friday. We had already decided to get bids from 2 moving companies since it didn't appear to be a huge rush for Hanjin. Well they decided on the obscure Korean company based in California. They never came out to see what we had that needed to be moved, and didn't return many of King J's calls. We were supposed to have full packing service, but I was very thankful that I listened to my gut and had 3/4 of it already done.

They didn't arrive until 3:15 when they were supposed to be there at 11. All day long they would tell King J they were 30 minutes out or that no one was answering the doorbell when he would call to try and find out where the h**l they were. So they finally show up and it is 3 little guys, one older Korean gentleman, and 2 hispanic helpers. All of which speak VERY little english. They promptly give me a job of filling out packing stickers and putting one on each box or piece of furniture going on the small truck (It was like the size of one of the middle size uhauls) I was so worried that everything wasn't going to fit on that small truck. Something that they would have been prepared for had they come first to see what we had to move. I begin showing them around the house so they can see all that needs to go. I can tell from the look in the Koreans eyes and his body language as I take him room from room and in the backyard and the sheds that he is worried too. But he just half smiles and nods his head. Well they get busy and are loading the truck. I set to work using the shred my mom left, and what few boxes they brought to pack up some of my breakable vases and craft room. Before they had even gotten to my limited food storage, they were out of boxes. I don't know what the heck would have happened if they had had to pack everything that I had already done. Since the only things that were left for them to pack up were the kids toys, part of my craft room and what was left of the storage room.There was about a 1/4th of the truck left, and none of the storage rooms or any of the outside stuff was on the truck yet. There were even some large pieces of furniture left and the Korean comes to me in his broken english says, "no much room, outside migh stay, down here migh stay" then he walks away. I am thinking to myself, Like h**l it is staying. You don't get to pick and choose what we get to move with us.

It is about 6:30 at this point and King J is on his way home. I called him and told him he had better get ahold of someone and get another truck dispatched right now because I am not sure if I was just misunderstanding him or not but they are NOT just leaving our stuff behind because of their lack of preparation. King J gets home and he hands his phone to the korean guy. It was dispatch. When he gets off he says to us both, "it ok, it all fit." I think to myself, it better, or you will be coming back tomorrow to get the rest.

I called a friend to see if the girls can come over to play since Princess M is sporting a fever and the movers were there way later than we thought they would be. She offers to keep them the night so I leave King J to "supervise" since he is content to just stand in the front lawn and watch instead of making sure all of our stuff gets on there in one piece. I get a call from him saying I might want to find some boxes because they are just putting all my canned goods in the middle of blankets and taping them up. So on my way home I go dumpster diving for boxes because of their lack of preparation. When I get back home I see my short shelved still full of cans, but wrapped in packing tape to keep the cans on the shelves. I say, um no, here are more boxes. and I leave to go run another errand. While I am gone King J calls to say that they just left and that our top mattress was the last thing they smashed on there to hold it all in. That it was like the tetris game and there wasn't an inch for anything to move at all. When I got home they were gone and relaxed a little bit more. Until I went to shut the storage shed and see our huge deep freeze sitting there. I am sure they left it on purpose. But it is to late, it wouldn't have fit anyway. Luckily another friend just lives a few houses up and really needs one. (hopefully she picked it up yesterday). So long story short, if our belongings make it to Ga in a few weeks period, let alone in one piece, it will be a miracle. They didn't inventory anything, just a number on each box or piece of furniture. So if something goes missing we know it is missing, but what it is we will never know.Justin had to put in writing everything that went wrong start to finnish and submitted it to HQ. It is so fun being the first ones to move.

So in the morning I am headed down to GA (currently with the il's in Tenn) to look at more homes. Pray for me tonight that I find our home and that we can get back to some sort of normal life. The girls are great and just enjoying the ride, thank goodness.