The Big Move and Answered Prayers

Damien has taught at Ririe going on four years now.  We have tried to make the best of the situation, and always felt blessed for his steady job and employment that has allowed me to stay home with our children.  We really felt guided and directed when we bought our house in Shelley, and knew it was where we were supposed to move when we bought our house in 2007.  But about two years ago, probably even longer for Damien, it was wearing on me, on him, on our kids, on our whole life style.  I hate looking back at blog posts and realizing there are so many times when Damien has had to miss out of seeing those special events.  I know he hates it worse than me.  We had our house on the market for about a year, two and a half years ago, but it was priced way too high, and we didn't do any work to it to get it show ready.  My heart wasn't into moving either.  I liked the schools at Shelley and I had a good group of friends that shared a lot of interests with.  And let's be honest, I liked living twenty minutes away from my mom and sisters and being ten minutes from Walmart. 

I knew having Damien gone a lot was hard on our kids, Carter, in particular.  I would find him sometimes in his room with tears in his eyes because he hadn't seen his dad in four days and missed him.  One day when he asked me, "Mom, why do we still live in Shelley if Dad works in Ririe?"  I honestly didn't have a good answer for him.  Why did we?  What was holding me back from wanting to move?  I realized that every reason I wanted to stay in Shelley was selfish, and that every reason to move closer to Ririe was going to benefit my family.  After realizing this, I had a change of heart.  I knew we needed to move. 

We made plans with a realtor, Belinda Tolley, who was a family friend, to meet after we had done some work in the house to make it more appealing to buyers.  In October of 2010, we spent $120 on paint and painted the whole house.  My mom, Marie, and Megan spent hours and hours at my house helping me clean, organize, and stage our home.  I have to say, it looked great! 

Then the day Belinda was supposed to come see the house and get it on the market, I noticed a little leak downstairs by some pipes.  I called my father in-law and he was nice enough to come look at it.  He thought the sewer pipe had broken or something because the water did smell "sewery".  He suggested we call some professionals though, since plumbing is not his specialty.  After THREE different plumbing companies and THREE different opinions, a fourth company came and agreed with my father in-law.  They were able to track the problem down, yes, a crack in the sewer line, and give us a plan to fix it.  We needed to cut a square of concrete out of the sidewalk, repair the pipe, and pour new concrete.  He was so nice and gave us a bid of about $500, but told us we could do it on our own for much less, given I had a handy husband and father in-law.  We were able to get it fixed in the next two weeks, and Dustin Pond came and helped Damien with the concrete work.  Once that was all fixed, Belinda came out and we got the house on the market.  That was in the end of October 2010. 

We showed our house many times, and the pressure of keeping it show ready was "super annoying"-for lack of better words.  We would have spurts of no showings, months in between them sometimes, and then spurts of lots of showings.  Honestly, when June 2011 hit and we still had no one interested or any offers, I began to question whether or not we really were supposed to move.  I really didn't understand why this wasn't happening for us when it would improve our family life so greatly.  We were getting frustrated. 

At church one Sunday, a sister gave a talk and shared some experiences that sounded all too familiar to us.  They had been trying to sell a house, and nothing was working out for them.  They were getting desperate, and one day they realized that in order to receive this blessing from their Heavenly Father, they needed to put in a little more effort.  They started that day having regular scripture study, family prayer, family home evening, etc.  They started doing all those things we are asked to do, but find excuses not to do them pretty easily.  After a few months of doing these things, they were able to sell their house and things worked out for them. 

It was Damien who came home from church that day with a new resolve to do the things we had been lacking on a bit.  For us, it was family scripture study.  We were VERY hit and miss with that part of the gospel.  We started that night, and had family home moving on Monday night (with an actually lesson and everything! haha) and did good on prayers too.  On Tuesday, Belinda got a call of someone wanting to see our house.  I had a feeling I needed to do everything right for this showing, and was feeling a little overwhelmed with the task when I heard a knock at the door.  When I opened it, there was my big sister Marie, with her workin' clothes on!  How thankful I was that she had shown up to help, and boy did she help!  Then my mom showed up, too, and I quickly put them to work.  We got the house ready and it looked great!

The couple that looked at it loved the house, and wanted to see it again on Thursday with family.  Belinda sounded really excited, and I had to work hard not to get too excited.  They ended up loving it and actually put in an offer!  We countered and the counter was accepted. 

We went out the next weekend looking for a house in the Rigby/Ririe area.  Belinda showed us about a dozen houses that Saturday!  And we were able to cut the list down to about 2 that were seriously considered.  We felt really good about one house we saw, and after having our families look at them, we put in an offer. It was countered, of course, and we finally came to an agreement.  Easy peasy, right?  WRONG!  We were supposed to to close on October 7th, but on the 5th we found out the people buying our house still had not gotten the funding and was still waiting.  We ended up not being able to close until the 15th, but had to live in Mike and Tammie's camper (ours was jam packed full of stuff) until the 21st.  Needless to say, it was not the smoothest closing and I feel so grateful we had such a great realtor who helped us with every annoying step! 

We realize that blessings don't usually come from reading scriptures for two days, but we felt so blessed that this finally happened for us!  We have been doing so much better with scripture studies and prayers-we want to make sure our Heavenly Father knows how thankful we are for the blessings he sends to us!

I know this is a fuzzy picture but I wanted to include it anyway. Little Eden was such a good helper all moving day, but she conked out before we were done. Since her crib and room were all packed up, she found a random pillow, and crashed in the middle of the living room!

We recruited the whole troops!  Tammie was busy mopping the bathroom for me!  We are so grateful for everyone who came to help!

Even Addison was put to work.  Here she is vacuuming the edges in her room.

The girls room-almost empty...I did get a little lump in my throat thinking about all the love and work we put into this room when we were expecting Addison.  So many great memories!

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning!  Working in the master bathroom ad bedroom.  I am starting to show baby #5 too!

Packing up the master bedroom

Cutest cleaning crew ever!

Marie is always so good to help.   She's giving my new Kirby a spin!  I love my new vacuum. by the way!

Megan and Mom-having way too much fun while cleaning!

Almost done getting the house spic and span!  Megan is giving the kitchen and dining room a final shining!

Dr. Poulter was put to work too!  He was so nice to come and help us on his day off!

Little Eden woke up form her crash nap ready to party!  And pack!

We were so grateful to have good friends who let us borrow their trailers, the Bowden's and my good friend, Krishaun's parents, the Leavitt's.

Mike never got a break, I don't think!

McKoy is super excited to be going to the new house (well, the camper...) and made sure to keep a couple football out of the boxes!

The tired troops after a day of packing and loading!

437 Quigg was such a great house for us and we were sad to say goodbye!  But so excited of where we were going!

Goodbye front yard!  And grass, trees, rocks, and fence that we worked hours and hours and hours on!

Goodbye garden/weed spot!

Goodbye playground spot!

The final check-everything out, everything clean, everyone ready!