During the five years we lived in Arizona I grew to love Arizona and more importantly, the people there. We made some fantastic lifelong friends. Among many reasons we are grateful we lived there, our friends are hands down the #1 best reason. Moving back to Utah was always on my mind though. I felt very inclined to live closer to my parents. I missed the relationship I felt my kids had with my parents when we were able to see them often. I desperately missed the seasons and the excitement of fall colors and tulips blooming in the spring. I missed the snow and warm blaze of the fire when it's cold outside. I missed the mountains. My list went on and on. Most importantly, I missed the feeling of "being where I belonged". I felt oddly displaced while we lived in Arizona.
I always had a vision of where we would end up - maybe it was back to what I had known while we lived in South Jordan. I loved it there and thought that is where I would probably be most happy. Justin was always my dose of reality reminding me that things change, people move on, life back there would be very different now for us and that he DID NOT want to move back to the Salt Lake area. That was a blow to me for a long time.
I also thought that I knew what would be best for our family. Our journey to where we are now is nothing short of the importance of giving ourselves completely to our Heavenly Father in faith and trust. I have learned a valuable lesson over the past 18 months. What we think would be enough for ourselves our Heavenly Father has so much more in store for us. I think sometimes we shortchange ourselves.
Last May 2008, Justin was interviewed for a position at Dugway Proving Grounds. We needed to make a job change at that point. Justin had applied for and interviewed at different places in Phoenix. Nothing came of any of them. But along comes Dugway - really out of nowhere. They offered him a position. Now we need to sell our house in Phoenix where the market has dropped out of nowhere. Our realtor told us we wouldn't get what we owed on the house, but decided it might be worth a try. We listed the house, had an offer on it eight days later. The appraisal on the house came in $25,000 under their offer price. What a blow! Our buyers walked away. But a great agent we had and she lined up a second appraisal. The second appraisal came in just $1,000 under their original offer and our buyers came back. This all happened while I was on my way to visit my parents in Utah.
My trip to Utah ended up being a rental house hunting trip. We found a place to live in a quiet neighborhood till we could find a place to buy. We had decided to hold out for a year and see what the Utah market did.
Everything at this point has happened very easily: we squeaked out of a house that didn't ruin us financially, we found a house to rent that would suit our needs (and the owners were more than good to us) and we were on our way back to Utah.
We decided, based on the most reasonable commute for Justin, to live in Tooele and give it a try. You know, see if we would like it. Let's pause here: Tooele is 30 minutes from Salt Lake City (yippee for me). How many people get to enjoy mountain views, see the Great Salt Lake, enjoy the slower pace of a small town, yet have the city just around the corner. I immediately decided this town was a little gold mine. (Shhhhh... I'm trying to keep it a secret).
I immediately started looking for homes for sale in the area. Three months after our move here we found one in a neighborhood we liked. We made an offer on it, and I was sick. I stayed up that whole night literally sick to my stomach, couldn't sleep, anxious and upset. I woke up the next morning and told Justin it just wasn't right, I was going to cancel the deal. He was not happy, not at all. He left, I'm upset, and I felt strongly that I needed to call my dad. Dad is a wise man. His words of advice - It's better to sleep in a tent than not be able to sleep at all. I immediately found myself on my knees praying for some sort of peace. Go against what Justin wants? or just get over these feelings and go forward. I prayed fervently for a long time. When I finally was finished I felt like I needed to call Justin again. I called him and expressed again how I was feeling. He CALMLY said that if I didn't feel good about it, we shouldn't move forward with it. MY PRAYER HAD BEEN ANSWERED. That was all I needed. I picked up the phone, called our agent, told her to cancel the deal. I explained to her that the timing didn't feel right. I felt like we needed to sit on the economy for a while and see what happened. I immediately felt an overwhelming burden lifted from me. She called me back THREE times to tell me it was a bad move, we were getting a steal on the house. The pressure was crazy, but not once did I feel bad about not going through with it.
I should add here that right after the market crashed in January (I think it was January) I received a phone call from our agent for the first house. She was calling to tell me that what we had done - in backing out of the house - was very wise on our part. The economy was falling, home prices were dropping (which Tooele wasn't seeing like other parts of the state) and that my gut instinct was apparently on target...... (sweet confirmation for me.....)
Three more months pass and we find another house, bank owned, but needs finishing. We inquire about it, and decide to make an offer on this house. We made our offer and the bank came back asking $20,000 more than their original asking price. That was an easy one to turn our backs on. Not interested in that nonsense.
Three more months pass. I'm at work talking with a client by the name of Scott Cluff. He casually tells me about a house down the street from him that had just gone back to the bank - not finished - and told me what he thought the bank would be asking. He gave me brief directions which I happened to write down in my appointment book. Sounded good to me, but at this point we have started looking in to building a home and have even made an offer on a lot and are getting pricing from a builder. Justin wasn't anxious to stir that pot, so I didn't say anything to him for a week or so about the bank owned house.
The first weekend in April 2009 - conference weekend - I mentioned this house to Justin. Sunday afternoon we decide to go for a drive to see if we can find it. I am not familiar with Erda at all and am going off my scratchy directions from Scott and my memory - which isn't always great. My directions actually got us to the house though and the door happened to be open. First impressions though - I loved the way it looked from the street. The property backs the LDS Church farm with no neighbors close by. I'm in love with that part. We walk in the house and find it was just as exciting. Master bedroom on one side, two bedrooms on the other. Kids bathroom has the tub on the opposite side of the toilet and a linen closet in the bathroom. The dining area is behind the kitchen rather than between the family room and kitchen. Silly I know - but all the little things I wanted, this house had. I'M EXCITED NOW. I'm absolutely sure the price Scott told me couldn't possibly be right though. So we go home and I start googling the address. It comes up with a flier the bank had posted with a contact name and phone number. Monday morning I start calling without any luck.
Finally Tuesday morning I received a return phone call regarding the house. The bank was putting it on the market the next day and they are asking what Scott told me they were asking. I couldn't believe it. So I call my agent, he meets me that day at the house, and we make an offer. The bank countered and we came to an agreement by the next day, before it hits the MLS. We are excited at this point and I know this is the house and area I want to raise my kids.
The bank wants to do all our financing - they will carry a construction loan so we can finish it. We have paperwork drawn up, I am getting bids for finishing the house, all is moving right along till the day our agent called to tell me the bank that we were working with and that owned the house was just shut down by the FDIC over the weekend. We were scheduled to close on the house the next week (with a 4.75% interest rate I should add). I'm upset. Now we are in a difficult situation. Banks right now are not loaning on construction without a hefty down, which would exceed what we needed to finish the house. We couldn't finish the house without owning it, we couldn't own it unless it is finished. We were in an awful catch 22. Over the next 2 months, we spent time on the phone with banks, FDIC, our agent, trying to think outside the box as to how we could make this happen. We had to extend our purchase agreement two different times, till we finally got FDIC to allow us to go in a finish it without closing first (under the radar) and buy the house at our original contracted price. Great! Any idea how nerve racking that is to be throwing money into something that doesn't belong to you? However, we are blessed with the support of my parents and family and we moved forward - with that gut instinct that says everything will be
OK.
We gave notice to our landlord that we would be out by the end of July. He rented the house and the new renter wanted to move in the last week in July. We didn't feel this would be a problem so we gave her the thumbs up - but then our closing started being delayed, for small
technicalities (for three weeks). My stress level was peeked and, over the 24th of July weekend, we moved into a home that still on paper didn't belong to us. I didn't sleep too well the first three nights here. But finally on Wednesday July 28
th we closed and the house is officially ours.
This process has taught me many things. Patience and persistence are vital - especially if what you are chasing feels right. Those feelings?
definitely the Holy Ghost - my Heavenly Father guiding my choices.
Such a long story to get to a small point.
I'M HOME.
I had to add that this is what we get in our back yard. The corn was just chopped and they are plowing preparing for next spring. What a great neighbor to have.....
My baby is four today. Where has the time gone? There is not a single day that goes by that I don't give thanks to my Father in Heaven for this little guy. I thought I was so smart four years and nine months ago and thought I didn't want any more kids. I felt like our little family was so perfect just the way it was. Well, glad I'm not totally in charge here. John is our little cherry on top. We just wouldn't be complete without him.
