Wow, it's almost over!

So, a month ago or so Justin and I looked at each other and agreed the next few weeks were going to really fly by. Then the tornado dropped, lifted us, our children, and our extended family up in the air and spun us until we were left reeling and completely disoriented, much like the teacups ride at Sea World we experienced as part of the excitement.

We're not totally through this busy season, but we're definitely experiencing a little bit of a lull until Justin takes off in another week. Here's the recap.

We spent the last week in April in Saint Louis with our wonderful realtor, Pam, checking out every home in our price range in three counties. It was a whirlwind trip, and we were optimistic about a few of the homes, but when all was said and done it didn't seem we'd found anything that felt just right. We had two homes we were interested in but each came with its own set of problems. We'd been  home just a couple of days when another home came on the market in exactly the right location for the price we'd been hoping for. Pam checked it out for us and thought it would be something we'd like based on our three days in the car together, so we decided to make an offer on it, sight unseen. Yes, it's crazy, but I felt good about this one. Well, I pause here to tell you our printer died recently, so we decided we'd basically be living at the BYU copy center and Kinkos for the next week or so while we were getting the offer together. The next weekend was General Conference.

We packed up a couple of days after conference for sunny San Diego! We met my parents and my brother Sam with his wife and kids, and had a BLAST at Disneyland, Sea World, and spending time on the beach. My kids had only seen the ocean once, briefly, before this, and Izzie was small enough at the time she didn't remember it at all. I didn't take a lot of pictures unfortunately, I think because I was worried about chasing three kids around Disneyland in the middle of California spring break. But my mom took some great pictures, so hopefully I'll post a few soon! It really was a lot of fun, and was an unbelievable graduation gift for Justin and Sam both. (Sam just finished law school, can you believe it??? Congrats, you guys!!!)

While in San Diego we continued fielding counteroffers on the home and by the time we returned we'd come to an agreeable sales contract just in time for Justin and I to re-pack our bags and return now to SEE the home and to conduct the inspections. Finally, about the house. So, because I have this weird lump in my throat when I think about divulging this home and then having it vanish like the rainbow I won't give out addresses or register the kids for school until we've actually signed. However, the house is in West County - Parkway district - we couldn't stand to be too far from either our South County or O'Fallon friends, so hopefully we haven't done something silly like made ourselves too far from BOTH! We're trying to close by the 18th, so after the appraisal and after the sellers agree to fix some things I'll start sleeping a little easier. The house needs some real updating inside, and a couple of big things showed up on the inspection, but it's 50+ years old and has been very well cared for those years. For the most part things were great, and we're hoping they'll agree to the fixes quickly so we can just be done with this part. 

Yesterday and today I've been working on financing, along with prepping for BYU graduation this week and the parties that will accompany that event. I can't believe this will be the last week we'll see many of our friends in the program now - it all went too quickly! Justin will have a week off next week, which will be nice, then it's off to work for him. He starts May 4th. Hooray for paychecks! The rest of us will settle into a routine without him for a while before we join him at an undetermined date following our acquisition of said home. 

It's been quite a month, and next month promises to be busy in other ways, but we're already looking forward to those hotel points and frequent flyer miles showing up in our accounts!