Happy Mother's Day to Me!

For Mother's Day this year, Kyle bought me a new house!  Thanks, honey!

Actually, it was coincidence that we ended up signing the Closing Docs on the home last Friday.  Tomorrow, May 15, is the actual "Close Date", and I will be there first thing starting to clean and paint.  We are so excited and thankful, and amazed we found it so quickly.  We aren't done with our current lease contract until July, so we have plenty of time to move.  It is about half a mile from where we are living now, so that means the same ward, same schools, same doctors, same shopping.  Phew!  I am perfectly happy with only a new house.  I have told Kyle I hope we can live in this one for the next 20 years so I don't have to move again for a very long time.  The home is beautiful on the inside, but the yard is a disaster--in fact, the backyard has never been landscaped and is dirt and weeds right now.  So, we have our work cut out for us.  But I'm looking forward to designing it and making it "ours". (With a lot of help from my dad on the designing part.)

You're all welcome to visit anytime!

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful women who have influenced my life for good.

I recently read this article: Irreplaceable Mothers.  The thoughts and ideas in it resonated with me.  I so want all the women in the world to understand their Divine role and potential as children as God.  And to know how powerful we are simply because of who we are.

Find out more about the movie Nicholeen talks about in her article here: Irreplaceable. I'm hoping to see it next week!

Easter

We had Easter together as a family this year.  I must admit it was strange not getting together with extended family, but it was still a good day.  I decided to do an Easter feast with just us.  I did the usual: homemade rolls, ham, mashed potatoes, salad, etc.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.

The kids opened their Easter gifts/baskets in the morning (I tried to limit the candy as much as possible.), then we had church, our dinner, then we went to the cemetery to visit Anneca's grave.

We were finally able to put the pinwheel flower at her grave, since the ground has been too frozen previously.  The cemetery was so beautiful, full of flowers everywhere you looked.

This Easter was actually a really hard one for me.  It was the first one since Anneca's passing, and while I felt like I should be celebrating Christ's Resurrection--and knowing that, as a result, Anneca will also be resurrected, it was a sorrowful day for me.  I do well most days, but this was one of those days where missing Anneca hit me really hard.  I long to hold her, to watch her grow, to nurture and love her.  I try to remind myself there will come a time I will be able to do this, but sometimes I'm not very good at remembering that.  Life is hard.  But, ultimately, I am more grateful than ever before that the Savior loved us enough to suffer the Atonement for us, that He overcame death, and that we have hope through the power of His name.  Yes, life is hard, but I'm doing my best to learn what He would have me learn along this beautiful journey.  And to remember that, even amidst sorrow, we can have joy, because of Him.

Harms' Visit!

Barbie, Lidya, Reagan, and Tsion Harms came for another visit the end of March.  It was the last couple of days of their Spring Break.  We loved having them here!  Barbie and I just enjoy talking and catching up on everything while the kids go crazy playing together:).  Saturday we spent the morning at Riverfront Park, exploring, seeing the Falls (beautiful with all the spring run-off), riding the Carousel, sliding down the Radio Flyer wagon, playing at the park, etc.  We also drove up to see the Whitworth University campus.  Their oldest daughter, Emma, just received a full-ride scholarship to Whitworth so will be attending there in the Fall.  We're excited and hope that means we'll get to have them visit even more!

The Saturday evening after they left, Kylene and I got to attend the first ever General Women's Broadcast together.  All girls, age 8 and older are now invited to attend, so this was Kylene's first time attending, too.  It was so neat to get to have that time together.  Our Stake had a dinner afterward celebrating Relief Society.  A fun evening with my daughter whom is becoming a beautiful young woman!

SOLD!

As of today, we are no longer homeowners!  Yippee!  We closed today on selling our first home in Salem, Oregon, which has been a rental property since we moved out of it in January, 2012.  The short story is we are thrilled to have it sold!  If you want the long story, keep reading:).

It was okay being Landlords, and we were very blessed to have wonderful tenants, but I never did quite like the prospect of owning an "Investment Property".  I guess it's just not my thing.  We have been talking about selling it for awhile, hoping the market would come back up, and not wanting to displace our current tenants.
This past January, we made the decision we would sell it.  I contacted a Realtor and talked with her about putting it on the market ASAP.  The next morning at 7:00 a.m. my cell phone rang; it was our tenant. (Note: it's never a good thing if your tenants call you at 7:00 in the morning!)  There was water dripping from the ceiling in the kitchen.  Panic!  They shut off the water and I called a plumber.  He came and cut a HUGE hole in the ceiling, only to find out it was not a plumbing leak.  So we figured it was a roof leak.  The roofing company came and did repairs on the roof, and the next morning, still dripping!  What?!  Finally, someone we had look at it realized it was the seal around one of our window trims.  The caulking had deteriorated and simply needed re-done.  Voila!  No more leak.  But there was still a huge hole, so we had to call an Independent Contractor.  And, voila again!  Several hundred dollars later and problem solved.

That took more than three weeks to go through that process.  Then we had an Acquaintance express interest in purchasing the home as a rental property.  Yay!  We wouldn't need to put it on the market and our renter's could stay put.  Perfect!  Until he did an inspection on the property and didn't like a couple of things and "it just didn't feel right."  Two weeks later again, and we were back to square one.  But, by this time, our tenants knew we were trying to sell.  So we decided, what could it hurt?  We asked them if they were interested in purchasing it.  Never in a million years did I think they actually would be.  But THEY WERE!  (Loud, joyful screams!)

BUT, they weren't quite ready to buy yet.  It all came very fast for them, but after working through things, and us being very patient, we finally closed today!  And we were able to do it without a Realtor.  (We passed the savings on to them, but I was still so glad it didn't have to go on the market.)  It is so exciting!

Here is a picture of our first home, the home we lived in for 7 1/2 years when three of our children were born.  It was a great first home for us and we have many wonderful memories here.

We are so glad another wonderful family who already knows and loves the home was able to purchase it and will be able to continue enjoying it.  We are so grateful how everything works out in the end!

(And, our other big news...we are under contract to buy another home, so if all goes well, we will close on that on May 19th.  So I guess the not being a homeowner won't last very long after all:).)