(wow, this is a long story. but bear with me, it's a part of our family history. and if you are just joining us, please begin at chapter one)
In the prayer mentioned earlier, it was promised (and this part still makes me nervous, but I'll share it with you anyway) that our house would sell quickly and it would be as a miracle to our family. It would manifest to our children that the Lord is mindful of them. With this prayer in mind, we began our long list of "house to-do's" before we could have it listed. We had one week to get it all ready and it was a nail bitter, but we had so many people helping us, I couldn't believe it all came together. My friend Jan surprised me on a day that I was overwhelmed to tears. She told me, "we are coming, because we love you." I still cry writing this now. She had asked several sisters to drop their plans and serve our family for whatever hours they could spare, doing the ever super fun, manual labor. Shelly planted flowers and helped with my scrape project, Cathy and Corinne I literally sent packing starting with specific rooms, Tarja gave me some scrubbing elbow grease, Jan cleaned carpets, Barbara got her inner karate kid and helped me paint our wrought iron fencing, Shellie and her husband helped weed and plant flowers in our "vacant for years" rounder. And there were many more in the behind the scenes work lending prayers, emotional support. I felt what "relief" felt like. It quickly made the load feel bearable, and I appreciated it so much. During this "rush to market" my kids lived as vagabonds. They made their own breakfast, lunch, found things to do watched TV. Each morning they were mandated to participate in a big home improvement project each day. Sperry even practiced on our old gate, hammering in nails and painting. They rarely complained, and were hard workers. Scott even got our local Missionaries to serve us by painting and attacking some ivy. Thank you to everyone (and there are so many more I didn't have room to mention).
Two weeks after our "interview" visit, we decided to do another trip to Colorado to find a house. My plan was to take the kids to Utah and attend my nephew JC's wedding to Jordan. It was an awesome wedding and so fun to see everyone. My sis, Kris handled the "mother of the groom" title with grace. After the wedding, I left the kids with grandma's and cousins (they had a great time and didn't even miss me). Thanks everyone, it was a group effort and you guys are lifesavers.
When we were with a realtor, there was a neighborhood that felt good to us. There was a house that we loved, mostly because it had a finished basement and a yard big enough for a trampoline. In preparing for our house hunting trip, I felt the impression "I've shown you where, now make it happen." Scott agreed and we planned on going out to put an offer on this home, contingent on the sale of our Cali home...oh yeah and we would need them to be ok with us renting their house till our house sold. Tall order, but we thought it could be done. The plan was for me to fly out from SLC Sunday night and return Thurs afternoon. My goal: have a house under contract (escrow), an idea of insurance stuff and visit the would be elementary school and middle school. A few days before I flew out, the home that we saw and were planning to put an offer on had been...shockingly taken off the market. What happened? Why would we have felt so good about this area, only to have this home taken. I started to question things. Maybe we shouldn't even be going out again this soon. Maybe we should put the time frame later to allow more time for additional homes to come on the market in Colorado. Maybe we should cancel this trip, and get the kids ready for school. If we kept to our original plan, the kids and I would return from Utah 5 days before school started, and I had not purchased one pencil to prepare them.
Scott calmly mentioned that he felt we should go forward with our plans. Good thing I love this guy, cause I was ready to cancel the trip. I flew out from SLC and Scott flew from LAX (in Sunday, and he was to return Tuesday afternoon.) for our house hunting trip.
