House Hunting

A good part of May and June was spent house hunting. We were obsessed with the MLS listing. I'd constantly search and re-search on a few different websites. My real estate agent, Amy, is a friend of ours, and she has two little girls. Once or twice a week we would pack up our kids and meet to walk through different houses. We found several that we liked, and we made a number of offers. Then we'd wait to hear back, always with the same response: your offer has been rejected.

After making several good offers on houses I started to feel like I was wasting my time. I knew we would find the right place, I just thought maybe this wasn't the right time for us to move and we should wait a few months to look again. The week before the 4th of July we got another rejection, and I just had to take a break for a week or so. When I got back from the weekend, I decided to start looking again, and for the first time I went to an area called Iron Mountain Ranch. We saw a few houses on Monday and then a few on Tuesday. We submitted a few offers, and Wednesday morning I got a call from Amy saying our offer on a house we saw Tuesday was accepted!

That night we went back to the house so Jeff could see it. It was a foreclosure and needed some work, especially in the front and back yards, but we were really excited about it. Some of the things we loved were:

-we could raise our family here and never have to move

-master and kids rooms on the same floor

-it's in a small gated community

-our street has eleven houses and ends in a cul de sac (minimal traffic)

-close to church (it's literally one house away - first thing I thought of was that I wouldn't have to drive to early morning seminary!!)

-close to schools (a few blocks from elementary and high school)

-has a pool and tons of potential in the back yard

-proximity to shopping (Costco, Walmart, Target, Best Buy within five minutes)

The closing date was set for early September, which was nice, because it gave us time to get ready for the move. That Sunday we visited the ward, and we loved it and felt right at home. People were so friendly, and there were tons of young families. Everyone also raved about the elementary school we were zoned for. So, the first part of my summer was spent looking for a house, and the rest of the summer was spent preparing for the move, meeting people at the house to get estimates on work to be done, and packing.