Our Family Project

Jon needed a break from work, so he scheduled the Wednesday through Monday surrounding Independence Day as vacation days.  I spent Wednesday trying to make a skirt for a lady from church (long, tiresome, and frustrating story that you will not be bored with), so we began our true stay-cation on Thursday.  We figured it was a great opportunity to explore our new home. Thursday: Montezuma Castle, Montezuma Well, Beaver Creek, & Sedona MONTEZUMA CASTLE We drove north to see Montezuma Castle.  It's hard to believe that the people who lived in this apartment-like structure carved it out of the side of a mountain/hill.  But, the location was amazingly perfect.  A stream running right in front, with the ability to be on the top as lookout for enemies, fields below near the stream for crops.  As far as they can tell, the people lived here between 1200-1400 A.D.  I stood there in awe, thinking about how long it took them to build this home, how many yea...

For Memorial Day, we made the day trip up to Prescott Valley, AZ to see our good friends, the Polls.  They recently moved to Prescot Valley from MN, so it was awesome to see them and hang out like we used to on Memorial Day.  About a ten minute drive away from their house there is a state park that we went to.  We ate lunch, then went on a hike.  Unfortunately, we went the round about way to get to this amazingly deserted beach.  The beach was only about 50 yards from where we ate our lunch, and we just didn't see it.  We chose to walk the other direction and we walked all the way around the lake, which ended at the beach.  And it was a great reward for all of that hiking. The entire time we were on the beach reminded me of our Memorial Days back in Minnesota.  We'd go to a state park, eat lunch, then go play at the beach ... and yes, we did this with the Polls there as well, except we also had about 5 other families at our little ...

Wow, after a few days of confusion and decision-making, and a few days of being jerked around treated not-so-nicely by the seller, we decided to walk away from the house. On this last Monday we had the inspection performed on the house. The inspector found a few things that needed to be repaired (the electrical was all messed up, lights and fans not even wired to the switch on the wall, and other things as well), and the termite inspection showed that there were termites in the house. That same day we heard from our loan officer and found out that in order to get the loan we wanted the seller would have to prove that he'd put $40k into improving the home (he was an investor and had bought the home in December for $70k less than what we would have bought the house for). Turns out that he could only account for $15-30k. So, we couldn't get the loan we wanted, which meant we had to get an FHA loan. In order to get the FHA loan we needed to push back the closing date 45 days. So, ...

We didn't have to wait long. The next morning the agent called us and explained that the renters chose to rent the house to the other people who applied. Drat. Well, there goes that idea. We kept looking. We got word on the rental on Thursday, and that night Jon found another house that was about 30 minutes away from work. So, we emailed our realtor and asked her to show us that house on Saturday morning. Meanwhile, we continued to look at houses ... hoping for the straight sale that could close quickly, hoping probably in vain. On Saturday we piled the children in the van and headed to Cave Creek, Arizona to look at a house for rent. The length of time we would rent the house would be for a year. Something our realtor wasn't too thrilled about because, well, she's been helping us find a house for almost three months and she wouldn't be getting paid for it. Anyway, we walked through the house and it looked nice and like something we could totally live in. While there, a...

I think we saw around eight or nine houses. The first two houses we saw were completely trashed. I am not kidding. I've never seen houses so trashed and torn apart that someone was trying to sell (at least at that listing price). We walked out of those two right away. Then, we went to a third house. A house that looked better, but the highway was just across the street ... the noise would have scared away any potential buyers if we were to sell the house again. We ended up driving further north and west to see a few more houses. At one point we got to a house and the owner/occupant was still there. Weird. I don't think they were doing anything to try to sell the house either. There was laundry all over the house, a huge dog barking at us from the backyard, the master bedroom was torn apart (we could tell it was the bedroom they gave to the god), there were toys and things cluttered everywhere; we couldn't even go through a door because there were things blocking t...

After we got to Phoenix, we had very few things for a week. Basically, we only had everything that we packed in our vacation bags and that was it. Because we were moved by Jon's company seven years ago, I remembered a few things that I really wish we'd had in corporate housing, so they were packed in boxes which were to be dropped off at our temporary housing. It's interesting what companies believe you need in an apartment. The most interesting is what they think a family of seven requires. For example, when we first walked through the apartment I noticed two bath towels in each of the two bathrooms. Hmm ... four towels for seven people??? Thankfully, the company that had stocked the apartment had put an extra two towels in our closet. And, in addition, we had the towels we used the night before the move that were packed in a temporary housing box. But, it sure would have been interesting to see how many times I'd have to wash towels so we could all bathe throughout th...

*The next few entries share our experiences over the last few weeks ... I haven't had time to keep up as things have happened ... but I want to get back on track!* It's a been a few weeks since all of this happened, but I want to blog about it so I remember it all. This whole adventure has been a whirlwind, and it's still not over. The above pictures show the last of the load for the truck. I meant to take pictures as it was happening, but because I was the go-to person for the moving crew I was running all over the place, and also trying to stay out of their way. Our house was filled with boxes ... my neighbors can testify as they came over to say good-bye on the day the packers came. Here is everyone the day we drove out of Minnesota. Despite some of the appearances of boredom, everyone was in "vacation" mode and ready to go on a trip. Forget the fact that we have the last of our possessions that didn't make it on the truck above our heads atop the car. Here...

*This should have been posted weeks ago .... I forgot that I'd started writing this post and saved it to finish later. Well, I guess it is later. ;-)* Tonight I was pretty lazy when it came to dinner. And, one of the good things about Jon not being home is that I don't feel like I have to make a really nice meal every night. (Not that I don't think we deserve a really nice meal even when Jon is gone ... just that no one else would appreciate it.) So, I made hot dogs wrapped in crescent rolls. And, the girls thought it would be fun to put mustard and ketchup faces on their hot dog "mummies." Yes, I let them play with their food, and yes, they had a blast!

Just enough time for a quick update: We do have a buyer for our house. And, despite his pickiness, he still wants to buy the house. We have complained a lot about what he's been trying to get away with, but I do have to express my gratitude that he is going to buy the house. Our close date is March 12th, but we will be leaving for Arizona in just 10 short days (February 26th). Jon has to be in Chicago for training the week of march 12th, so he wouldn't be able to help get us out to Arizona that weekend. We thought about going out the first week of March, but by the time we get there Jon would have to turn around and leave again. So, we opted for leaving a little bit earlier so that we can have at least a week with Jon before he is away from us again. Anyway, just wanted update everyone and let you now why I haven't been posting anything recently ... just too busy wrapping up going away gifts and collecting medical records and such. We will be basking in the warm Ariz...

Yes, we are on our way! We accepted an offer on our house. Actually, nothing came from our second showing this last Monday, so we countered the first offer. And, the buyer accepted our counter offer. Yesterday we signed the offer acceptance, and tomorrow is the inspection. I cannot believe it has happened so quickly, and not too shy of painlessly. Forgive my personal ramblings below. You may skip over them if you are so inclined. Four years ago when Jon got his job in Edina, MN we talked about moving closer (the commute time was anywhere from 40-70 minutes each way), but that's all it amounted to: talking. Last year at this time we talked about moving closer again because he was assigned to work three days in the Edina office and two days in the Oakdale office (Oakdale commuting time was roughly 50-90+ minutes each way). However, we didn't go through with it because I was so stubborn. Yep, you read that right: I am a stubborn mule. I was too afraid of trying to sell the house o...

Perhaps it's not the typical use for a stool, but it works for Maryanne just the same!

A couple days ago I was expressing come concern to Jon about Maryanne's eating habits. She basically eats bread stuff and milk and that's it. ( See this post .) So, Jon suggested I try one of those Gerber toddler dinner thingys. I'm not quite sure whether Maryanne liked it, or hated it. She definitely ate the sauce for the ravioli, but everything else ... well, you can see what she did with it. At least she tried to clean it up.