Home

I am grateful for my home, and what a great home it is, and in a safe neighborhood.After being gone all weekend, Todd and I drove up to our house to discover that the garage door was open. Not a great feeling. We inspected and saw that nothing was missing, even with my bike sitting right in front. We figure someone else's remote must have opened our garage door. We don't know when it happened or how long our stuff was out in the open, but you have to feel good about the fact that nothing was stolen, especially when there were some valuables just hanging out.

We've lived here for 3.5 years. It's a great home, and a great neighborhood (only wish there were more younger children). We are close to many stores in town, close to a free-way entrance, 20 minutes from a major city. Yet we have a very secluded property, feels very private. I was drawn to this house, before I knew it existed:

Because of Todd's schooling demands, before moving here my mom had come out with me to help me pick out a house. LeNae and Lana watched the kids at a hotel (bless their hearts) as my mom and I went looking at houses. The process was long and hard. With so many houses there were things that were right, but a lot of things that were wrong: located on a busy street, far from the hospital, bad set up, weird mirrored walls all through the main floor. It didn't help that we had taken Grant with us and he did not enjoy it, not one bit.

By the end of the evening we had narrowed it down to two houses. Both very nice homes, but I didn't feel drawn to one in particular. I finally decided on one of them and wrote up an offer with my real estate agent - who was amazing and very patient. The home had some furniture that had fit just perfectly, so in the offer we asked for some furniture as well as asking for a lower price. Originally I asked my agent to hold off submitting the contract until the next morning, but as we were parting my mom questioned my holding off the submission . I agreed to have my agent submit the offer that evening.

The next morning I awoke in a panic. It was the wrong house, I knew it. I just felt sick. I went to break the news to my mom. After spending so much time and effort looking for a house, and it being my mom and sister's last day with us, we were excited to just relax and hang out with the kids. Though I know it was the last thing she wanted to do, my mom was very supportive of my feelings. Now the only problem that remained was the submitted contract, they had 48 hours to decide, 48 hours where we could not submit another contract on a different house unless they rejected our offer.

At an appropriate time in the morning, I called my real estate agent. I told her that I wanted to keep looking. She was understanding and very workable, but we still did have the submitted contract looming over our heads. We agreed to meet at a certain time to continue our search and if the original contract was accepted, we would just accept that it was the house we were supposed to move into.
Upon meeting up with my real estate agent, I was informed that the people had countered my offer. I was thrilled. This released me from any obligation to that house, which as beautiful as it was, it was the wrong house for us.

My agent took us to some awesomely beautiful homes. After the first home, my mom proclaimed that it was the one. I was distracted by the glitz and glamour, and granite, but couldn't quite get myself to say that it was the one. I think my mom was a little disappointed that I requested that we keep looking.

We looked and looked. The houses were beautiful and I was starting to narrow down our choice, but then I suddenly realized how far they were from the hospital. Our goal was to live as close to the hospital as we could so that we could spend more time with Todd. All of these houses were too far for our liking.

It was getting to be dinnertime. My agent had to meet someone at the local Applebee's, but we wanted to keep looking. We asked her if we could drive the area around the hospital looking for a house...and oh, ya, this would require us using her car. Again, my agent was superb and handed over the keys.

My mom and I drove to the hospital and just started driving. We had no clue exactly where we were, but we knew we were close to the hospital. Every time we saw a house for sale, we wrote down the information. We kept driving around and around. We found ourselves going down a cul-de-sac, there at the end was this beautiful country house with a for sale sign in front. Though I loved it, I thought that it was totally out of my range, but my mom fussed over it so I wrote down the information.

After our allotted time, we returned to Applebees with a list of numbers for my agent to see if there was any way we could get into any of them. Twenty minutes later my agent announced that only one of the houses were available and willing to let us come view. We headed over.

We found out that it was the one in the cul-de-sac. As we walked to the front door my mom said, "I think we found the one." Upon going through the front door, I agreed. I had such a comfortable feeling overcome me. This was home! We toured the home and were very impressed with it. The layout was perfect in the areas that I had wanted. The backyard was awesome, felt very private, especially for being in the middle of town.

Since the homeowners were out of town, my agent pulled out her laptop and started typing up our offer. My mom and I were gushing about the perfectness of the house when my agent got our attention. The house was just put on the market that day! We found out later that the owner, a part-time realtor, had packed up for their family trip, dropped off their contract to the office, and left that morning. Between noon and 5, someone from her real estate office had set up a sign in the yard!

I really felt that this experience allowed me to experience both a negative and positive confirmation. The Lord knew what was best for our family and where we needed to be. Our house is only a few miles from the one I put the first offer on, but is in a different ward since we live on the ward boundaries. I love the ward we are in and truly feel that this is where we are supposed to be.

I am grateful for our home.