A Better Offer

Well bless my soul... we actually got a better offer on the bigger home. We are totally excited! I don't have a picture of this one, but I will get one eventually. It is new (still not finished, in fact.) It has 4 bedrooms upstairs, a big kitchen and an unfinished basement. All for only 4,000 more than the little one. Sweet Dreams do come true! If you are really curious, you can go to richmondamerican.com and click on the "Aaron" to view our floor plan and see a picture. Ours is elevation B. We love it!

Kwint starts work in Park City on Monday, so we are setting sail on Friday afternoon. We are actually looking forward to spending some time at GnG's and we will get to help pick out carpet, paint and fixtures. It will be fun!

My first item of business though, will be going to the zoo. I have wanted to take the boys for sooooo long!

It has been a hard week saying goodbye to our family, friends and neighbors but we are really looking forward to a new adventure. 2 days and counting....

Joy in the Crazy Times

So.... Still don't know on the house. We got a REALLY sweet counter offer, which we are about to wholeheartedly accept... IF this one more house doesn't pan out. Kwint's parents went to Heber today and took pictures for us. It is bigger and costs more, so it would have to be just the right price to get us to walk away from the super cute smaller one. We will know for sure tomorrow night. We are sooooo excited! Either way we will be really happy.

The plan for now.... If we get the house pictured in the last blog it will close on May 31. If we get the other one, which is not yet complete, it will close on June 30. That means we get to camp out at GnG's BnB. (Grandpa and Grandma's Bed and Breakfast) We love it there! We are really excited. Kaeleb will finish kindergarten at the school Grandma teaches at and she has a favorite teacher all picked out for him.

We are going to leave all our stuff packed in our garage here. (We love our buyer. One of the benefits of selling a home to a friend... Actually, Shelley is more than a friend, she is also Kwint's office manager and our unofficial adopted big sister. She has a 17 yr old daughter, Sam, who is a big sis to our boys. This will be their vacation home and Shelley's niece will be renting it from her whenever they do not need it.) Once our house closes we will drive back down, visit friends and family, then load up our stuff and go home. Ah....

I am actually very glad to have a break in between packing and unpacking. I can do all the address changes and utility hook ups in a relaxed state of being, rather than while packing. I may also refinish a little furniture.

Whenever I get too busy I manage my stress by being creative, which makes me more busy. While I have been packing, I also bought couches, made pillows, hung new curtains in a couple rooms, and painted a desk and a bookcase. Oh yeah, and we put in the backyard. What is wrong with me? I get so manic. Even when I am not moving, if I feel stressed on a busy day I always make bread or cookies. It is an anomaly.

In the midst of the chaos, my short term memory is going, going, gone.... So, I thought that I had better take a moment to reflect on the little guys I have neglected to mention. I have to tell a couple cute stories before I forget them and then it is off to pack and clean and pack and clean and pack....

Brennan told a little girl at the park that his brother is five and he is "half of five". Brilliant! He really is! I think he actually meant 5 and 1/2, because he hears Kaeleb say it and it is how old he wishes he was... but he is still brilliant anyway.

I made a stroganoff of sorts for dinner on Thursday and he growled when he saw it. He yelled "Not THIS! I have eated this for two days! I don't not want it again!" (I have not made it in months.)

This one is my favorite: When the Jacobs were here, I heard Bren and Tate talking together, just chattering away. I thought, "I wonder what two two-year-olds are talking about?" So, I perked up my ears in time to hear Brennan say, "Tate! Heavenly Father built your head." Yes! He does listen in Nursery!

Kaeleb is doing so well in school. He is reading like a champ! He got to skip a reading level, which apparently is very important to the kids because I heard all about the conversation he had with Avril, the smartest girl in his class in which she bragged that she was a level ahead of him... but not anymore! I love watching him learn.

He went on his first field trip a few weeks ago and has another one on Tuesday. I thought he would be so excited to ride on a school bus for the first time but when I asked about it exuberantly, he said "It's just a bus, Mom. It was just a field trip." Sheesh, what do I know anyway? I'm just a mom.

The boys have decided they will all learn to play the guitar. Kwint dusted off his old guitar and bought new strings. He plans to teach himself online (having learned a bit in HS and not played in 15 years...) and then teach the kids. I guess this means I better start re-teaching myself to play the piano.

This post is very long, for one reason alone... I am supposed to be mowing the lawn while Kwint finishes raking the last of the gravel in place.... guess I better get mowing...

We had a successful house hunting trip.... This is the house we are hoping to get.... We should know in a couple of days. We love it. I love it because it reminds me of Weiser architecture. Ha ha!!

We also found a buyer for our home here and set up a lease purchase which is going to be a really great deal for both us and our good buyer, so it has truly been a miraculous week. We have prayed for this miracle for 8 months and knew it would happen, it just didn't happen when we thought it would!

We got new couches this week to put in our new house. If I may toot my own horn, I made the pillows and am pretty proud. I love this picture-- Kwint and his mini-me. :)

Springtime Happenings

Lovely Spring... we have been blessed with mild weather two years in a row in our beloved scorching desert. I love Spring!! We spent Easter weekend in Layton and Heber. Our main purpose in going up was to find a home, which we did not accomplish, but we are going back up next weekend and won't come back until we have found our new home.

We have a very creative solution to the house situation in St. George, thanks to Kwint's brilliant and kind parents, which I will blog about once it is official, but blessings from Heaven have distilled upon us and there is a solution formulating. We are very thankful.

The boys were pretty lucky... the Easter Bunny managed to find them at Grandma's house!! They were quite excited by these new short swords, and amazed when Mom let them eat candy for breakfast. (and lunch.) (and cake for dinner.) Ugh.

We went to an Easter egg hunt at the Parker's (Aunt Barbi's Mom's house hosts the annual event)


I am an now an official Soccer Mom. Kaeleb loves playing and especially loves his cleats. He wants to wear them any time he thinks he may be running in grass, you know, just to make sure he doesn't slip. It is really cute to watch kids his age play. They mostly just run across the field and back in a big pack and every once in awhile someone gets a lucky kick in and they all turn around and run the other way. Those are pretty much the rules, right?


I love the tongue in this one. It was actually very cold (Ok, cold for St. George is 50.) so the kids were all wearing coats instead of their blue and yellow jerseys. The week before this it was 80, so you just never know what to expect down here. Kaeleb's team is called the Monkeys, and he is hoping he will get a trophy like the one he got in Basketball.

Business endeavors are looking better every day and we are so excited to be heading up and see where it all leads. We are truly sad to be leaving The Biggest Loser Resort, but have been connected with another fitness resort in Sandy, called Utah's Live in Fitness Camp, where Kwint is set to start lecturing and taking clients as soon as we are up there. It is a 45 min drive, so it may only be one or two days a week that he spends there. He will stay busy the other days with referrals from Max and doing phone therapy with the clients he keeps from St. George. He is so happy. I love watching him grow and creating a niche for himself.

I am excited too, because I am meeting this week with a personal trainer and am ready to learn how to do this. I have put my studies on hold until after the move but it will be so good to get some hands on learning in the meantime. Once I get my certification I am going to move on to another certification called "Lifestyle and Weight Management" which will enable me to write meal plans as well as fitness plans. It may be another full year before I actually start working, when Brennan goes to preschool, but at the rate I am going, it will take a year to finish my certs.

We had a wonderful weekend with the Jacob's Family who graciously came to visit us even though we will be up there in just a few short weeks! I neglected to get any good pictures, even though we had a sooooo much fun. It was a bit noisy and chaotic, as you might imagine with 5 boys, but they were in Heaven. Both boys were completely depressed when they left. Kaeleb wanted to know exactly how many days it would be until we see them again and Brenny whined for an hour "I just wanna go wif my friends! I just want my friends to tome to my house!" We are glad they love Tracen, Tyler, and Tate as much as we love Dan and Dee. It will be such a blessing to be close to our good friends up North again. We have pretty strong roots grown in both places now, and we are feeling very grateful that the Lord has blessed us so.

We Are Gonna Miss This Place!

Yesterday we hiked the "Saddle", a beautiful hike behind Tuacahn that heads up a canyon and over a saddle shaped crest down into Snow Canyon. (The boys didn't last all the way, but we had so much fun playing on the rocks!) It is free and has some of the most incredible rock formations in Southern Utah. According to us, anyway.
Kwint has dubbed this one the Dragon Head...

We found a mini "narrows" a crack we sidled through just for fun. Here, Kwint sat on top and I hoisted the boys up to him.

Me and the boys from Kwint's bird's eye view...

HOW, we asked ourselves, did a rock form itself into a perfect cube?

And, here is one of many fun rock piles we climbed on, just for fun.


We so love these red rock hikes. We will miss having it in our backyard, but we know that even after we move, we will be here for many a weekend vacation and revisit all our favorite hikes. Maybe not mid-July... but all spring and all fall we will be hitting the rocks. (All winter we will be hitting the slopes in Park City!!)

There are many, many things we will miss. We have become so rooted here that it really is with heavy hearts that we will say goodbye to this chapter in our lives. We will never say goodbye to St. George because we plan on traveling down as often as we used to travel up, and we will keep all that we hold dear close to us-- Tam, Dave and the girls, and our wonderful friends. It is interesting how much deeper our emotions are flowing now that we know how close we are to leaving.

We had three interested parties in leasing our house this week, but no offers. We are finally feeling peaceful about it, though. We have 4 plans, A,B,C, and D. We are praying and studying things out, and we trust Heavenly Father. He knows what we need and He will make the way. We are ok with whatever we have to do. It has been a rough road emotionally in this "down economy", and hearing every negative and discouraging thing possible from anyone and their neighbor hasn't helped, but we really know it will work out however He has planned it to, for our benefit, even if it doesn't feel beneficial to us at the time.

So, plan A: A miraculous, cataclysmic event occurs and we get an offer to buy our house at what we are asking within the next 4 weeks.

Plan B: We get an offer for someone to lease purchase or to purchase by seller financing.

Plan C: We keep the house and find people to go in on a time share to cut the house payment down so that we can afford it while renting in Heber. I will start working from home to offset the cost. (I got a job offer from a colleague of Kwint's who has a website business and I would read and summarize newsletters to put on her blog.) It would be a delicate balance, because I am easily over-stressed, but I could make it work.

Plan D: Rent the house out. This is not our favorite option, because we have heard too many stories of renters who trash the homes they rent (although we are planning to rent for a couple years and we are not planning on trashing whatever home we rent) and we never know if they will default on their payments and the we will be stuck in the same situation we are stuck in now. But if we have to, we will look for renters.

So, we are going to refinance this week and see if we can get our payment down a bit, because no one will pay the amount of our mortgage as rent or a lease purchase... It has been so frustrating!! The buyers all want soooo much house for sooooo little money, and because of all the foreclosures and the fact that there are literally 8,000 houses for sale in Washington County, they are pretty much able to find it. We just can't compete in this market unless we short sell, and we don't want to damage our credit. We are already kissing goodbye all of our equity, unless we keep it for awhile until the market rebounds more, and then hopefully we'd kiss a little less goodbye.

Now that I am finished with my rants and raves, we are getting ready to head up to Heber this coming weekend to look for a place to live. It will be nice to have a place to picture us living in as we pack. It has felt strange putting things in boxes, unable to imagine their next destination... We are excited for the weekend. We will DVR Saturday's General Conference to watch throughout the next week so we can house hunt, and then spend Easter Sunday with Grandpa and Grandma. Yay!!

Speaking of conference, I went to the YW broadcast last night with Tam and my nieces. I loved all of the inspired messages.... funny, how I am no longer a YW, but all of my prayers were answered as I listened. All of us could benefit by reading it in next months Ensign. Pres. Uchtdorf told his love story with his wife, which was adorable, and I came home very glad I went.

The weather has been so perfect this week! We are outside a lot with the neighbors. The boys love to play with the Evans and the Rands across the street, and they love digging in the dirt. We are getting our backyard in, which we will enjoy for the next four weeks. It looks great. (We are hoping it will help sell the house.)

I know this was a long one. Feeling talkative tonight. Stay tuned next week for Kaeleb at soccer-- he joined a city league two weeks ago and LOVES it.

Oh, the Luck of the Irish was upon us once again....
We had a festive, albeit icky looking, St. Patricks Day.
We enjoyed Green Eggs & Ham...

Green Tuna Fish Sandwiches...

And Green Shamrock Cookies....

The Pot of Gold was hiding a little surprise for the boys from a lucky leprechaun. Not that Kaeleb fell for that bit of fun.... He said "Leprechauns aren't REAL Mom. YOU dropped those things on the table." Nothin' gets past him.

This past Monday marked my 33rd birthday, which we celebrated for four days, but got no pictures... Mom usually takes them... I felt very loved and remembered, so thanks to those of you who wished me well.

We are feeling the stress of our upcoming move.... We are doing everything we can think of to sell our house and a big fat nothing is happening. We are praying for the miracle, but have a plan B and a plan C if it doesn't sell in the next couple of weeks. It is just a really crummy economic world we are living in these days and I can't think of anything positive to say about it.

I am focusing on the only thing I actually have control over, which is my strategic packing process. Empty boxes, full boxes, packing priorities, etc. Loads O' fun.

Spring Break

This week was Kaeleb's first "actual" Spring Break. He did have one in Preschool, too, but a kindergarten Spring Break is different. It's legit. So, since we are not-- due to the upcoming move-- in a position to take a vacation, I tried to think of fun things to do at home, for free. I had big plans... most of which were foiled by the rainy week we had, but we did get out on one hike once most of the mud dried up.
I love these little Billy Goats. They were positively bouncing along the trail. Kaeleb was trying to catch Brennan in this one, he wouldn't stand still for the picture. :)



The other fun days included a Wii tournament, in which Kaeleb schooled me on the baseball field, 8-0. Yes, I struck out every time. I blame the umpire. But I beat him at boxing. He was really mad at me for not letting him win. Ha ha!

Another rainy day activity was going to Barnes & Noble to look at books and play on the stage. We love it there. It is one of our favorite places to go when it is too cold or hot to play outside. Kaeleb always picks out a new Berenstain Bears book. He has a plan to collect ALL 50 of them. This time he chose "Moving Day". (I put the idea slyly into his head)

Our plan was to use the Berenstain Bears to help Brenny transition to Heber. Kaeleb is SUPER excited to move. He loves the snow, the cold (reminds me of my dad, he never wants to wear a coat and says he likes it that way), and is most excited to live close to his favorite cousin Talan. Brennan on the other hand, is less than excited about the idea. Every time we show our house I drag him out the door screaming "Dis is MY house!! I not dunna sell MY HOUSE!! I don't WANT dose peoples in my house!!" You wouldn't think a two year old would really understand the process, but apparently they pick up on more than we give them credit for.

I don't know if the book helped, but when Kwint went snowboarding with Sadie and Jaiden on Thursday, Brennan was quite jealous and begged to go. So, Kwint told him "When we live in Heber I will take you snowboarding all the time." That did the trick. He became excited to move... but when we get there in May and there is no snow, I have a feeling we will have one disappointed toddler, who will not forget that Heber = snowboarding.

Other than that it was Candyland and Dawn of the Dinosaurs. So, maybe it was lame as far as Spring Breaks go, but we had fun and that is all that matters.

Saturday we had planned on helping our dear friends, the Millers, with their backyard. But it was windy, cold, and hailing. So, we had lunch, and then Mary Lynne and I went shopping while the men and boys played. This is the best picture we have ever taken of McKay. He likes to tease me and run away, so I usually only get the back of his head. Little turkey. While we were gone, Brennan treated him to his first fist fight, but in the end, they are still best friends. As we were driving home Brennan said, in a dreamy voice, "I love McKay. Sooo much."

So, I feel like I am living in Seattle again. This winter, and last winter too, actually, have been long and wet. It is going to be up to 70 this week, but it has been fun for me to enjoy the rain a bit. My kids have picked up on the fact that I am always happier on rainy days. Kaeleb said once, "Hey, it's raining! Mom's favorite kind of day!" and another day Brennan looked out the car window at the clouds and said "Its a Bootiful day today." It is because every day that is cloudy is not blisteringly hot. I will miss everything about St. George except the heat.