We did it, team. We bought a house! We are going to be able to move in December or January, a month or two after our rental contract ends. Luckily our landlord is willing to let us keep renting on a month-by-month basis, so we are hoping to be able to make a slow, calm move over the course of a few weeks rather than an extremely stressful frenzy of a big move like all our previous moves have been.
Ok, home details. We went with House #3 from last week's blog post: "Meh house on dream lot." We had already made up our minds that this was the decision we were going to make, and we were settling in to have to wait a month or so for it to be listed. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure our sales agent was feeling guilty for accidentally doing us dirty on the original house we wanted, and she knew we were gunning for the dream lot house now. We're pretty sure she went to bat for us and got them to list it on Saturday. We found out on Friday evening, and shortly after were told that there were going to be multiple offers, and so they were going to do a "highest and best offer" situation on Saturday.
0/5 stars, do not recommend having to do a highest and best offer. It will mess with your brain chemistry. It is so stressful not to know what anyone else is going to offer, and wanting to make your offer competitive enough that you will definitely win, but not so competitive that you're unnecessarily losing money by going way above all the other offers. In the end our offer won (we knew from the beginning we had some extra leverage because our purchase wouldn't be contingent on our home selling, our timeline was flexible, and we weren't bringing a realtor to the table for them to have to pay). It also helped that the price they initially listed the home at was WAY lower than we expected it to be, so we had a lot of wiggle room to make a competitive offer and still come out paying less than what we would have initially planned to pay. That's a lot of info, but we did win the house and we are so relieved to have a trajectory and a concrete timeline for settling into our next home now! They are hoping we will be able to close in December, but it might be January. That is a way's off because they let us buy much earlier than they usually do, and we don't mind. We'd rather be locked in now and wait a little longer to move in than have to keep waiting to be able to buy and feeling uncertain it would work out.
So now we are getting excited to settle down on our absolute dream lot! Pinch me! I have been vision-boarding a home by foothill trails, with a peaceful lot and nice views, forever. The kids will be close enough to walk to school until they are in high school. We will still be living close to all of Jack's friends. It feels so right not to have to uproot, and for lots of reasons, it feels like we were led to this exact lot over the course of the last year and a half, really since Jared took his very first interview in Utah and this neighborhood was the only one that felt right to us after weeks of neighborhood hunting. We have come to love the area where we live. The home itself is actually very similar to our rental house, but with a few elements we like better, like the primary bedroom on the main floor, a fireplace, and a 3-car garage. The things we don't like about it can be slowly changed over time, and with time the backyard will be an incredible play/entertaining space too.
That is our big update for the week! Because we are renting so close to where the home is going to be, we will likely be driving over there most nights to see what new progress has been made. The kids are so excited too. They will have so much space to play, a walking path and flat street to ride bikes, and we will have the BEST sledding hill right next door to our home. And now for some pictures from our week:
^^At our home just after we found out it will be ours!
^^On Labor Day we met up with my bestie and her parents at Little Fork Park. It was lovely to hang out and let the kids play together while our husbands played Magic like the cute lil nerds they are. Julie's parents made the BEST canyon breakfast of pancakes, sausage, hash browns, cantaloupe, eggs, and they even had hot cocoa and apple cider. It was just the most lovely morning.
^^Sad grl
^^Food poisoning grl. I kid you not, this girl had to miss school last week because she got a stomach bug, and then she had to miss AGAIN this week because she ate some suspicious watermelon and it took her out for a day. That is just not fair. I have spent many an hour sleeping on this little lady's floor lately, and my back is very unwell.
^^Luckily, even though she was sick all night and had to miss preschool, she made a miraculous and immediate recovery after school started and so we went to the dinosaur museum and got some ice cream. I felt bamboozled, but what are you gonna do. (Don't worry grandma, we have a hair trim on the calendar for those bangs.)
^^Lots of Alice pics this week, but come on, everything she does is cute. Jack had a lot of fun playing flag football this week! Jared is enjoying being the assistant coach because the responsibility is pretty low but he still gets to be involved.
^^Getting ready for picture day! Hair trim for this boy coming up soon too.
^^Post-preschool picnic. This girl is a joy to be with. We went to a park and Alice noticed a few other kids playing on the playground. She wanted to play with them, so I recommended she go ask a little girl in a white dress if she could play. Alice shyly walked over and asked, but the girl gave her the absolute crustiest look and didn't say a word. The look was so crusty that it scared Alice away and she came running back to me😅 Alice was pretty distraught, but I told her the girl was probably really tired or really hungry, and she could try one of the other kids. So she mustered up some nerve and went to ask the other 2-year-old girl if she could play.The girl said "no," and Alice turned to look at me with such a dejected look. I pointed adamantly at the girl's 4-year-old brother, and Alice asked him next. He thought about it for a moment and then also said, "no."
Alice came running back to me with a quivering lower lip. There were no other kids at the park so I was ready to be her playmate, but on a whim I suggested, "Maybe they just didn't know what you wanted to play. Maybe they like to play tag. Jack loves to play tag. Maybe try asking the brother if he wants to play tag." I wasn't sure she would do it after so many "no"s, but by golly that girl has some gumption, and some perseverance I can only assume she learned from her big brother (heck, I've learned a lot of my own perseverance/assertiveness in my 30s from her big brother. Thanks Jack!). She asked the boy if he wanted to play tag with her and he said yes, and soon after his sister said she wanted to play too. They had so much fun chasing each other all around the playground for the next half hour, and every time Alice ran past me she would yell, "Hi Mom! Look! We're playing nicely! Bye mom!" She is a joy.
^^We found out we got the house during Jack's flag football game. We celebrated with dinner at Johnny Rockets before going to walk through our new house together.
^^A tiny Jack and Alice visible out the top left window. The backyard feels so vast! Not only does it go back really far, there are also open foothills beyond that. It feels very peaceful. And I love that there are lots of windows to keep a scenic eye on them. Feels like we are laying the foundation for a childhood filled with play and adventure.
^^I would be remise if I didn't add this picture onto this week's post. We had a Sunday dinner last night at my parents' home with my grandma, aunts and uncles, siblings, and some cousins. It was just a lovely evening watching all the kids play so well together. Caitlin made an incredible peach pie to usher in peach season. And my lovely grandmother wore this beautiful outfit. A floral tapestry vest that has come back into fashion, and a button-up with an embroidered collar. She told me the story of buying it, and about the pleated skirt that goes with it. She is a sharp dresser, my grandma. I feel so grateful we were able to move back to Utah when we did and be here for the Sunday dinners. They are maybe my very top highlight of living in Utah.
