Katelyn turns 5!!!

Wow. I can't believe that 5 years ago today Katelyn transformed us from a couple to a family. We'll post pictures and stuff of her day, party, etc. later, but I wanted to write before I went to bed how proud we are of both her and Megan. We're extremely blessed to have such beautiful, intelligent girls. It's always a roller coaster when it comes to kids, but we love them so much. The last 5 years have seen amazing changes in our lives. Then, we were in student housing, I was almost finished with school, and Cassi was holding down the fort from the OR at Utah Valley. I was just an intern, not expecting to stay in Utah or with Novell, but now am amazed at what we learned and how many life-long friends we made because we stayed for a while longer. Now Katelyn is in pre-school and dancing, and her life is getting busier every day. Katelyn really is our pioneer, guinea pig, and little mother. I'm greatful to be her father. Today we took her to see Wall-E. She got tired in the middle, and asked if she could sit on my lap. I look forward to those "payoff" moments when you know the bumps and bruises are worth it. Happy Birthday, Katelyn.

Love,
Dad

Visitors

Visitors are always fun, right? Well, the people kind yes. Other kinds, not so much...more on that later.

First, Cassi's posted already that her parents came and spent a few days soon after we were in. It was fun to see them, show them the area (though I didn't really show them anything - they loved to go driving and discover), and of course show them the house. They got to be here for Katelyn's first day of preschool, and I know Katelyn liked that.

This week we had a visit from Steve and Georgia (great friends from Springville), who were visiting one of their kids and his family who just moved to Scottsdale. We were so glad they came over and caught us up on all the happenings in our old 'hood. Here's a shout out to anyone planning a trip to the Mesa area: Come on over!

Finally (and I've been meaning to post on this for a while) are the non-human visitors...scorpions. Arizona Bark Scorpions to be more specific. In all the years I lived in AZ before starting BYU and living in Utah, I never saw a scorpion, except maybe at the zoo. We figured that since our house is 16 years old, that any groups of scorpions would have been persuaded to move on by now. Apparently that isn't the case; they've been happily living in our cinder block fence, venturing out for food at night. We think our sellers moved out around July 31st, and we didn't start moving in until August 13. So the house was empty, and under new "micro-management" for a couple weeks. I don't want to alarm - we didn't have an army to conquer. But one scorpion is almost enough for a pregnant wife to say "I'm not staying here, let's not move in." :) After a couple treatments by the pest control people, and now the weather is cooling down, we (knock on wood) don't see any in the house anymore, and we only see a small number along the back fence at night. The back fence residents will be eliminated when I finish getting my hunting tools together. I'll post another night about our ward's scorpion hunter. For now, I'll just say that she's given Cassi hope, and fired me up to start handing out the eviction notices.

Our house

I finally have a picture to share of our new house. We still love it and we love being here. Oh, and I should add that the van is not mine. My parents got to visit for a few days, and that's my mom's van. We do realize though, that our time is soon coming to be van owners, just not today. I didn't add any pictures yet of the inside...it's still a work in progress! Most of the unpacking is done. I'm still working on the organization and decorating.

Katelyn loves school

Katelyn goes to preschool 4 days a week for 2 hours at our elementary school. I think she asked every day for about 3 weeks if it was her turn to go to school. Finally the day after labor day she had her first day of school. I didn't let her know that on the first day it was really just an open house and I was staying the whole time. She still loved it anyway.


Then she finally got her "real" first day. I don't think she even really looked back. She just said "bye mom" and kept walking.


Now Megan wants to stay too. She often puts her backpack on to drop Katelyn off. Last week, Megan almost walked in while saying "Megan go school". I had to carry her crying all the way back to the car. It's actually a little nice to have my clingy Megan want to do something without Mom or Dad...if only it really was her turn to stay at preschool!

What Car are You?

I found this quiz on my brother's blog, so here are my results...

I'm a Porsche 911!

You have a classic style, but you're up-to-date with the latest technology. You're ambitious, competitive, and you love to win. Performance, precision, and prestige - you're one of the elite,and you know it.

Take the Which Sports Car Are You? quiz.

We are alive!! Warning....long post!

Wow. Time has gotten away from me. I know I haven't blogged in....forever. To my credit, I have just barely gotten settled enough to have my own computer ready. There is so much to say...so little time. I don't even know where to start, so much has happened. We officially did sell our UT home on July 14th. That was the first of not-so-smooth transitions. The movers came a day earlier than I expected. Then we ended up (while the movers where taking stuff out of my house) almost not selling the house. We had to put more money in because the buyers didn't have enough. Ugh. What else are you going to do on moving day? Just give in and walk away. Then we spent the remainder of that week in a hotel so Chris could finish the work week in Provo. Then Friday, July 18th we left UT and headed to my parent's house in Las Vegas. Chris left the next day to get to AZ so he could start working from home the following week. I spent the week with my family including my sister, who also came. We ended that week with my mom's birthday on July 25th. It was a really fun week. That's when the "fun" began. Now, I have to interject that we thought we were closing on our AZ home (the one that we wanted) on Aug. 1st. We found out on July 25th that the appraisal of the home came back $44K less than our asking price. Waaaayyy too low. Lower is better, but not that low. Both realtors felt that it was unfair and we asked for an appeal. As we were waiting for the new appraisal number to come back, we were unsure if we were going to have to start over or just wait this one out for....who knows how long. It ended up that the new appraisal came up $10k and the sellers came down $27K, then we compromised on the rest. We closed on our AZ home Aug 12th, after almost one month of being in storage. I have to admit, though, that the time went pleasantly. We were all ready to get into our home, but being with my family for a week and then living with the Partridge's made everything so easy. Well, after getting our home on Aug 12th, we had to wait until Aug 18th for the moving company to bring our things. This is when I lost it. I was going to rant on and on about the not-so-good experience I had with Global Moving and Storage, but it now seems not worth it. I thought I had done such a good job researching companies and getting one that was good and had high Better Business Bureau ratings and good comments. I just didn't feel I got the service I was told I was going to get. And in the end there were broken things that I specifically didn't want broken, boxes that were so mushed and cruched it was like they played soccer with them. So, all I have to say is never use that company. We are here now and settled and loving it! We love our house! The girls love playing with the cousins as much as they can get, and they love that it is still summer...and Katelyn hopes, it always will be. The girls have adjusted really well. We just so grateful we are finally here.

So, for the next bit of news about our family is that we are having another baby! I know, for some this is new news and for some this is old news. But we are so excited! We just found out this week that it is a BOY!! What? What do I do with a boy? I have all girls stuff. Everything is pink. I am getting really excited though. It's almost the excitement of a first baby because you need to buy everything new. Katelyn was with us in the ultrasound and her comment was, "But I though it was a girl, oh well, I guess it's a boy." She is so excited too. I'm going to have 2 little mommy helpers. The baby is due to come February 3rd...or, you know, whenever he feels like it!

Oh, there is so much more to say, but I'll stop for now and try to get some pictures together to show next time. I just couldn't wait any longer to post something!

Houses, houses, houses

I don't have any pictures to post today, but it's been a few weeks now, so I had better post something, right?!? We are moving forward with selling our Utah home and buying one down in Arizona. We went down last week to Arizona for our final push to find a house. We walked through seven houses, one that Cassi had been through before. We came down to three really good options, and decided on one to make an offer on. There were a lot of things going for this house.

1. The location is perfect. We will be in the same Jr. High and High School boundaries as Amy, and we're close enough to the Elementary School boundaries that we might be able to do a waiver.
2. The layout is very nice. It has 5 bedrooms, so there's one for me to work from home in, away from noise or commotion from the rest of the house. The girls can share a room downstairs, and have a playroom too. There's a separate family room and living room and dining room - all things I especially wanted as we looked for houses. The backyard is big enough, but not mammoth. Finally, it has a 3-car garage. I don't plan on getting a 3rd car for a long time (if ever!), so we will make good use of the extra storage space.
3. The house had a great feel. It's nice to find a house that has been taken care of, and this family has done that here. I enjoyed seeing the Family Proclamation displayed, as well as other family/church-centric decorations. We got to meet them a couple times as we saw the house during the week, and they just have to be good people.

We made an offer the day we decided on it, and it was accepted! I'm going to be careful about posting pictures of it after we've signed papers and have the keys in hand.

This past week has been busy packing here in UT. As we got ready for the drive back, Mom and Dad offered (and we accepted the offer) to let the girls stay in AZ with them this week until they come up to Utah for the 4th of July. We (and I really mean Cassi, since she's been home the most and has put in the most work on it) have packed a lot of boxes this week, as well as gotten really close to booking a company to move all this stuff down there. It looks like our house here will close somewhere around the 25th of July, and then we will close on our house in AZ around the 1st of August. It's been fun, and I get more excited each day to get down there and start our new adventure in the new house.

As far as progress, we have the inspection done, and soon will get the appraisal. Then we'll lock down the price. (If it appraises less than we offered, our realtor is going to work to get them to lower down to the appraisal.)

Well, it's late/early. Tonight (July 3rd) we get to bring the girls home. It's been really nice to have the extra freedom to pack and focus just on the house. but we're really excited to see them and have them back with us. It's amazing how you miss them when they're gone for just a few days. All the reports from Grandma and Grandpa are that they've been great, so we'll have to find some prize for them when they get home.