We're Moving

Unlike Jeff and Tara's post about moving a year ago, we are not announcing a move across the country, just up the street. Still it's been crazy enough to blog about. Shawn and I are living in an apartment complex right now, and as much as we LOVE our apartment, it is still just that, an apartment. For those of you who have forgotten what it is like to have people living above you, or below you, just take a second to think back to those times. But even that isn't why we are so anxious to get out. I have a two year old, and I watch another two year old. And these two kids LOVE playing outside. We have a great play ground set here at the apartment, but I feel like it is just as much work to take them out to that as it would be to take them to the park. So I'm dying for a back yard, because I feel so bad keeping them cooped up inside all the time. It's been winter, so I really haven't had a choice, but still.

Anyway, our lease in this apartment is up in the middle of June. We were told we had to give the manager's 60 days notice to vacate, so we did. When we went up to the office to do this, they asked how soon we wanted to leave. They made it sound like we could leave as soon as we wanted to. So we said, we'll let's go at the end of April. A day or two later we got a call informing us that to do this we would have to pay a penalty of $1200 on top of rent until someone else moved in. We obviously aren't dummies, so we decided to hang around until the end of our lease.

Well, on Tuesday the 7th, I got a call from the office asking us how soon we could be out. They had someone who wanted our apartment as soon as possible. So I called Shawn and we decided we could be out in 2-3 weeks. So when I called back we decided that the day we needed to be out by was April 26th. So the house hunt was on. We found a house by Thursday and got our application in by that Friday. Well we got a call that Friday night telling us that we were approved, but... the owner had been contacted by someone who wanted to possibly buy the house. So we had to wait all weekend to find out if we got this house or not, and by this point, I'd fallen in love with it.

On Monday we got the call that we got the house. So we are so excited. The down side is that we have to leave our ward, and we are heart broken about this! All the houses for rent in our ward were out of our price range, except for one that we seriously considered but decided it would just be too tight for us, and we really don't want to move again in a year. But we both feel really really good about this house, and we are so excited to get our family into our own little house, even if we don't own it. I'll put up some pictures when we get there next week. I'll actually be getting the keys on Friday, and Shawn will be on a business trip. So basically I'll be doing as much of the moving as I can on my own. Thank goodness for some good friends who are willing to watch the kids for me.

But we really will miss our ward. As the word has spread, I've had three families in the ward looking for houses for us. One lady found one, and she is so set on us moving in that she is willing to find us somewhere to "bunk down" until it opens in August. It's just been so sad to leave. We've just felt so loved by everyone in our ward, and have definitely made some long term friends in this ward.