Moving - In Pictures

Moving is so stressful and busy and chaotic that I never really had time to blog about our move.  Sure, I posted on Facebook, but here is our story in picture form.  This is obviously posted for more of a family memory, but feel free to listen in to the drama and know you are not alone, if you're in the moving phase of life.

We listed our Texas house for sale on Super E's birthday -- April 30th.

In 4 days we had 3 offers, all nearly identical and all above asking price!  We informed each to bring in their best offer by 9pm that night so we could make a decision before we went to bed that night.

The secondary offers were still nearly all identical.  We just had to choose.

We accepted offer #1 at about 10pm.  The next morning, before 9am when offices opened, we learned that the buyer had previously missed a couple of mortgage payments.  We were advised to let that offer go and accept offer #2.  So, we did.

Offer #2 looked good with a quick, 30-day closing, and we hightailed it up to Minneapolis to look at houses that next weekend.

We looked at 6 or 7 houses and narrowed it down to 2.  We went back and forth in conversation for an evening.

On Mother's Day, we put an offer on this beauty.  I negotiated price during a pizza party with good family friends and Jay's God Parents.  Our offer was accepted officially that next day.

That Monday we drove back down to Texas by way of Kansas City.

The next day as we were stuck in Ft. Worth traffic, we learned that offer #2 on our Texas house was backing out.  Seems she didn't like her proposed mortgage payment.

We immediately accepted offer #3.

I started packing.  A homeschool friend of mine gave me nearly all of her moving boxes and I started loading corners of rooms with packed, sealed and labeled boxes.  I called every 2 weeks or so to a local charity to come pick up donations from my driveway.  

Inspection was scheduled and took hours longer than we were told.  The buyers wanted a number of things repaired.  We chose some of the bigger items like replacing shingles and having siding sealed.  We painted the deck.
I hate painting lattice!

The inspection happened in Minnesota and nothing too major was found.  We looked into a couple of things and asked for some repairs.  The seller didn't agree to much, so we just had to live with it.

Jay left for Minnesota about 3 weeks prior to closing, to start getting settled with new clients.  I sent him up with our puppy Reese for some company.  He shared an office with another financial advisor.  Jay stayed with his God Parents in Coon Rapids.  

The day after Jay left we had a horrible storm complete with funnel clouds.  A portion of our fence came down.  The boys and I went to Home Depot for lumber and I managed to learn the big mitre saw in the garage and we fixed the fence in a day.

Why do those things always happen when the spouse is gone?
Did I really need that on my plate?

I made a paper chain to help Quiet Tiger with the excitement of moving, seeing daddy again, and getting our new house.  We hung it from the banister and removed 1 chain each day.

Not long after, I got a sudden call from our Texas realtor.  He said the buyers wanted to come see the house.  I panicked wondering why they'd want to stop by again.  Turns out, the buyer was out of state and had never set foot in our house.  Never!  Who does that?  So, the boys and I worked our butts off for 2 hours and moved all boxes into the garage, cleaned house, went to a good bye party for my friend Megan and her family while the buyers came through the house.

They loved it!  [Insert HUGE sigh of relief.]  Their realtor ordered the appraisal and the boys and I continued packing and packing and packing.  I knew the more I did, the less we'd have to pay the movers.  Jay's company was only to pay $4000 towards professional movers.  The rest would be up to us.

Our Minnesota appraisal happened and everything was done and ready for us there.  All we had to do was sell the Texas house, pack up and get ourselves up north.  I kept packing and packing and packing.

But the Texas appraisal didn't happen.  We were told it was ordered and that I'd get a call to schedule the appointment.  That call never came.  I pushed our realtor for answers because our moving date was looming closer and closer.  We learned that it was never ordered by their realtor.  Someone lied to us.  We pushed and it was ordered, but about 2 weeks later than it should have been.  So then we had to wait for the appraiser to write his report and send it to underwriting.  Everything was sent and we were told we'd close on time, as scheduled.

We said goodbye to our awesome friends and took pictures when we remembered to do so!

Movers called and asked if they could come late because they had a busy week.  No, that wouldn't work because we were scheduled to close on time in Texas.  They asked if they could come a day early.  Sure, I had 98% of the house packed anyway.  I let them come early.

We slept in sleeping bags for 2 nights as I scoured the house top to bottom.  We enjoyed a final, tearful swim in the pool.  Who cries while swimming?  I do.

Selling papers weren't ready to be signed the night before we left.  We drove to Kansas City through Tropical Storm Bill, (didn't know it was a tropical storm at the time) from Dallas all the way to OK City.  What should have taken 12 hours, took 14.  Awful, awful, AWFUL drive!  My kids never complained once.  They were rockstars!  We were told we'd be able to sign closing papers in KC.  That didn't happen.  We were assured we'd be able to sign over the weekend.

We drove to Minnesota and dropped our dogs off at a friend's before going to Jay's Summer Regional, an additional 120 miles away.  What's a few more miles after 1200?  We enjoyed downtown Alexandria and the hotel's water park.  We were told we'd be able to sign those selling papers at the hotel.  That didn't happen either.  At that point, we were stressed.

On Father's Day the Regional was over and we headed back to Coon Rapids.  Texas closing was still delayed.  We couldn't close on our Minnesota home purchase on Monday as planned.  We had to delay.  The lies and lies and lies from US Bank, our buyer's bank, kept coming.

Tuesday came, along with more lies all morning, but by 3:00pm we were finally signing papers to close on our Texas home.  Meanwhile, our moving truck had arrived and we were facing a storage fee of $2700 if we couldn't get into our Minnesota home.  The sellers allowed us to move our things in on Wednesday morning, prior to closing, for a very small fee.  I met our realtor/friend there, opened the house, vacuumed, met the movers, they moved boxes into the garage and furniture into rooms.  The money from our Texas sale was wired into our account just before lunch.  I wired the money right back out for our Minnesota purchase immediately.  I left to gather our dogs, where the kids and I were treated to an awesome lunch by our friend Lori.  Then it was back to the house where the movers were still unloading.  I changed clothes and ran to our closing, which took hours because the numbers didn't match up exactly.  Came home with keys in hand, I signed papers for the movers who were just waiting for me, and began cleaning.  I could finally breathe.  Ahhhhh!  HOME!

Except...

The sellers left the house in filth.  It took me 2 days to scrub bathrooms, cabinets, drawers, every single surface, before I could unpack.  Gross doesn't even describe it.  Angry.  I left my house in Texas so clean, you could lick the floors.  In Minnesota, I had to scrub for 2 straight days.

Gross!

But once cleaned, we were able to reconnect with family we hadn't seen in years.

And then we were reconnected with dear friends from Nebraska who had moved here and since adopted 2 beautiful girlies from China.  Bonus -- they live only 15 minutes away.

My college friend Mary came all the way out from the St. Cloud area (that's over an hour away, folks)  just to bring me lunch.  She brought her daughter and we basically picked up where we left off over a decade ago.  I love friends like that.

We have visited the cabin in Hayward numerous times already this summer.  We've been tubing and water skiing.  We've fished.  We've been swimming.

We've been to the Dragon Boat Festival in St. Paul.

The boys and I have been to The Guthrie to see The Music Man.

We've even started painting bedrooms!  Okay, I've painted 1 bedroom.

We're unpacked and settled.  

We're still learning light switches and quirks of the house.
We've faced our first appliance failure and purchased a new washing machine.
We've had repairmen out to fix a gas leak in the basement.

But...

We're home and very happy and grateful to be here in what we fully hope to be our
Forever Home!