SOLD!!!

We officially sold our house today!!

We got another offer on our house, and it was a cash offer so not much chance of falling through due to financing woes! It was a Japanese investor. It was looking so solid, but the amount of documents that have to be signed due to relocation about killed it yesterday. We had just one final document to go, and the guy was making comments like, "maybe this just isn't meant to be" because of all the documents. We were so stressed last night because of that.

But he finally got the last doc back to us today, and now we have a signed & executed purchase & sale from the relocation company, so it's now a done deal!! If the guy backs out before closing, it's still the relocation company's house.

When we first heard about the offer, we called our realtor here & went hunting. We had a few in mind & looked at those. We had one picked out, but figured we had some more time so we went to a few she had printed off from her search.

The last one we went to was pretty much Laura's (and mine) dream house. It's painted just the way she envisioned painting, it has a nice sized yard - not too big, not too small - and it has a land buffer behind it that is forested with nice woods and a creek! Absolutly move-in ready. We won't even have to redecorate or paint or anything.

We put an offer in the next day and after just a little back-and-forth, the terms were settled & accepted ($10,000 under asking) - so we're under contract on it too!

Take a look at the pictures & such if you want here... they don't do justice to the back yard at all.
http://www.prucarolinas.com/Listing/ListingSearchResults.aspx?Search=78e1356f-3ce8-406d-a279-8f0739a6e8fd&SearchType=&ListingType=1&ListingDistrictTypeID=&FirstLetter=&Sort=6

The very back is lined with azaleas that will all bloom in the spring & it will be awesome!

And this is a virtual tour...
http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?t=1214320&prt=20

We don't close until Dec. 14th, so wish us luck in being patient while being so excited to get out of the apartment we've been in (it's nice, but gets cramped with the kids fighting in this close of quarters).

We should be moving in on the 15th (we hope). If anyone can make it to help us move in, that would be great! :-) - no really, the moving company should do all of the heavy work. We'll just have to unpack & put things away.

Anyway, that's why there haven't been many blog entries lately - stress!! - we'll talk to you all later!

Next entry is Laura's celebratory funky cool hair-do (can you say frosted highlights?) and nails!

Scarecrow Sarah

I was downloading the pictures off of the camera and noticed this from this fall.

For those that didn't know, Sarah was in a community play with the Gene Fulmer Rec Center. She was the Scarecrow in a modified Wizard of Oz. She did an awesome job!! Had a solo song (someone else sang too - just so that they had a singing part, but it was really all Sarah with her booming voice & great scarecrow-like gangly-leged moves)!

Hear are pictures we took of here & a freind that came to see her.

The pond near-by

There is a nice pond near our appartment (Laura passes by while walking Lydia). It has ducks, geese, swans, frogs, fish, and all sorts of things in or near it so the girls are just enthrawled with it. They love to take some bread down & feed the ducks and swans.

Here's a few pictures from the area:

Keri took this one with her phone today.

This is Laura's great photography.

The girls having fun!

Brennen's Birthday

Well, it was Brennen's birthday on Tuesday. We pre-ordered Guitar Hero III for the Wii from Walmart.com as his present. The kids at seminary gave him a huge birthday card (full poster-board folded in half), and a whole bunch of candy.

We had an ice-cream cake since he doesn't like regular cake all that much. We lit some really tall candles that Laura got. Brennen tried to blow them out before Laura could take a picture. When I finally let him, he pretend-sneezed to put them out & it looked pretty darn real. Then, Laura was late on the snapshot becaused of that - and then the batteries were low so she couldn't get it to go again while he 'posed' blowing them out.

Luckily, Keri had videoed it all on her phone. Here it is for your enjoyment.

Here's the late photo...

And a rare smile from Brennen...

Hi all,
I'm creating this blog so we'll have a place to post pictures and such for the family to see all in one place, rather than separate emails.

Well, we arrived safely to Raleigh, NC Airport at 8:15am Thursday Morning. We were quite tired after a red-eye flight, but the animals required it because of temprature restrictions. They all made it here safely too. We were woried because the last leg of the trip had quite a bit of turbulence, but they were ok when we got here. Suprisingly, the aged Pink-floyd has made the adjustment quite well - and Tiger is the one that has shown the most stress. He's been wandering around aimlessly meowing loudly & wanting badly to go outside - which we won't let him do for quite some time.

We're currently in a furnished 3-bedroom appartment still waiting for our house in Utah to sell. We have 90 days of free rent here. If our Utah house doesn't sell by then, we'll have to find someplace else to rent (probably a house) and pay double for a while. I'm not sure how that will work, but we're hopful that the house will sell soon.

Our belongings arrived on Friday, just one day after we did... that was quick. We have most of them in storage (free for 90 days), but designated our clothes and food to come to the appartment. The closest super Wal-Mart is 10 miles away, but it sure felt good to go there & see something semi-familiar.

Anyway, the complex has a nice pool so the kids should be happy here. We're registering them for school tomorrow. Brennen will go to Athens Drive High, Sarah at Dillard Drive Middle, and Keri at Swift Creek Elementary.

Brennen's excited to start the October driver's ed classes! They have a graduated permit/license here so as soon as he's done his classroom work, he'll get a permit to drive with a licensed adult during the daytime for 6 months. Then they add nighttime hours for another 6 months. Then daytime alone is added for 6 months before they get a full license.

We'll post pictures (and videos when I figure out how to convert them to a smaller format) on here & send a notice of the post to the family so you can keep up on what we're doing. Isn't having the internet great when you live so far apart!

Anyway,
We'll talk with you all later.