I've learned a lot through this process, such as you can't have two houses under FHA loans. Russ had gotten our home in Orem under a FHA loan years ago so therefore when it came time to upgrade we would either have to sell that house, or go off of just me (my income and credit score). It's not an ideal time to sell the Orem house so luckily things worked out for us to get it under my name. Rewind to the first week of April when my former bank made a mistake and dropped my credit score 100 points, and for about a week we didn't qualify for our house. I got the phone call from our mortgage guy the night before our final walk through-needless to say I was very frustrated and while Russ was going crazy with the blue tape marking, I was roaming around a house I had gotten very attached to thinking it was about to slip through our fingers. (Drama Queen much??) To make the long story short the bank was in debate if the problem was their fault or mine so they were hesitant to help me, but if the problem was not to get resolved we would lose our house or have to get another borrower. Anywho, after spending days on the phone and a meeting with a manager at a local branch I received a phone call on April 3rd letting me know that the bank had sent paperwork to the credit bureau to correct the mistake. I'll be honest I was in tears as I called Russ letting him know we might still get our house after all. Our mortgage guy was nice enough to remind me that this didn't mean everything was okay-because of all the hubbub they would have to do a credit re-score and were still days out from knowing an answer. Thankfully something had fallen through with the fencing company the builders were having do our fence and since we didn't want to close until it was done we held that as our reason for stalling.
We finally received word that the credit score dilemma had worked out and as far as our mortgage guy we were good to go. The fence however.... it was delayed yet another week for who knows why and as it got closer we had no choice but to close on our house anyways (our loan rate had been locked in for the allotted amount of time). We made an agreement that the fence posts would be cemented in before closing and the vinyl slats would be placed the following week.
Tuesday April 15- our awesome real estate agent Spencer and mortgage guy Mark met us at United West Title that afternoon where I began to sign my name on paper after paper while the boys swapped hunting stories and joked around. As we left the title employee, Karen, seemed very confident that since the builders had already signed we could have keys within 24 hours. I went to work that night expecting it to still be days out (at this point I had learned not to get my hopes up).
Wednesday April 16- I babysat the kiddos that afternoon for a little while and as I got on the freeway to head home I got a phone call from Spence telling me we needed to go pick our keys from Quinn's (our J.Thomas homes rep) office. WAHOO! I was so pumped I just kept driving on the freeway straight to Saratoga springs to pick them up.
I went home and packed like a mad woman, (I hadn't done much packing since in the back of my mind the bank was screwing us out of our house). We had loaded some big things in an enclosed trailer the previous weekend, so I packed box after box getting a load ready. Russ got off work that night and my dad, sister, and brother met us at our house. With the trailer and trucks loaded we took off to the new house. That same routine continued on Thursday.
Friday April 18- After Russ got off work we went and helped roof Ash & Jake's rental house (okay Russ roofed while I cleaned up the lawn). Once dark we grabbed some take out, overnight bags, Crush and went and spent our first night in the new home! We finished hanging the blinds and spent the night on the floor in the spare bedroom since our bed was still in our Orem home. Crush was the first dog to see the new house-he can have a slight barking problem so got to come hang out with us.
Saturday April 19- Russ went to help on the roofing committee early while I slept in for work that night, then I went over for lunch. Later that afternoon we went to RC Willey and purchased ourselves some Easter presents aka appliances.
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| our make shift fridge |
Tuesday April 22- I was very tired that day after having worked the previous 3 nights, however it was an exciting day!
I could finally go grocery shopping to fill a fridge and do laundry! Ashlee and the kiddos came over to visit and break in the new basement as their bicycle ring.
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| My housewarming gift from Ashlee. Our neighbors house in Orem had a huge tree that always dropped theses leaves. I would count them as one of the most annoying things ever to always find these covering your lawn. So she grabbed some them, boxed them up pretty and gave them to me just in case I was to start to miss our Orem house. |
With the fence being done our plans were to build a dog run to get our dogs moved down from Orem (at this point we were driving there twice a day to feed them), but mother nature ruined that plan.
Saturday April 26- Elk hanging day! If anyone ever visited our Orem home they were well aware of the elk Russ killed years ago mounted on the wall taking up our whole living room. So as we were moving into our home finding a place for the elk was taken into consideration. We decided over the stairs going into the basement to have it out of the way but still viewable. There wasn't a stud in the center where we wanted to put it-so Russ had to get creative but I'm happy to report it's still sturdy on the wall! The troops aka my parents, brother, sis and bro in law came over to help once again, and with their help the elk went up smoothly :)
Sunday April 27- The weather let up long enough for Russ to dig post holes for the dog run. We were also lucky to be able to get them all cemented in before bed that night.
Monday April 28- My sweet mom came and spent the entire day helping me deep clean our Orem house. Also, I had asked my dad to come over and bless/dedicate our new home so we made a night out of it. My whole family came and we had dinner, dessert and hung out. The little kiddos also got to have their bath time in our big tub, and I think it's safe to say they quite enjoyed it!
Tuesday April 29- Mark and I were on gravel duty while Russ was at work! Russ was planning on finishing the dog run that night while I was at work (thank you to Mark, Jake, and Austin for helping),and wouldn't have time to get gravel after work. Unfortunately we will be making more of these gravel trips in the future to get our yard taken care of, fortunately it's on a hydraulic system so all we had to do was push a button and it dumped itself for us.
Wednesday April 30- I spent the early afternoon doing the finishing touches on my cleaning job at our Orem house before watching the kiddos for a few hours. I met Russ back at the Orem house after work that night where we proceeded to move the dogs! Russ had built a dog house around some dog igloos so we had to tear it apart a bit to get the igloos out so they'd have something to sleep in until we built them a new house. As we were loading up the dogs, their belongings and any last items we'd had at the house, our renters were moving in. That night we pulled away from our first home together, and the place we'd spent a great deal of our time while dating. While I'm still very excited about our fresh start in a new house, and we still own the Orem house, I had a tinge of sadness as I drove away. The dogs whined pretty much that whole first night, and the more I think about it I'm pretty sure it was Lady. She had the hardest time with the transition as that other house was the only place she's ever known. But I'm pretty sure they forgave me for uprooting their lives the next morning as they saw the yard in the light and they had their own personal mud pit.
Saturday May 3- My dad came and spent the evening helping Russ start building a dog house while I was at work. Russ had quite the plans for these spoiled pups!
Sunday May4- Our friend Kellen came and helped Russ finish building the dog house. I was sick in bed after a visit to the ER the night before (story to come later) but I snuck a picture before the walls went up. It's a 3 story dog house-one level for each dog, and the second level even has a window that latches shut in bad weather. I need to get a finished product picture because it turned out awesome and the lil dogs love it. My man is so talented!!
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| caught him trying to take a picture. I think it's proof I've trained him well :) |
It is amazing to be our new house and even better to have our dogs and all our belongings here! I cannot say thank you enough to all of those who have been at our beckon call these past few weeks to help us get moved and settled, as well as all the food that's been provided. Because of you we have made it through the past few stressful weeks, and not only survived but enjoyed them! See you all again in a few when it's sprinkler system and sod laying time :)
