Sunday Blog

I'm not a big "blogger". The very name makes me cringe a little, but I have been a faithful journal keeper for the last 5 years, almost every Sunday. So maybe I can remember to make a journal entry to the blog every Sunday too.
We've had a lot going on here. Two weeks ago we started up some communication with a realtor in Moscow. She sent us some listings to look at online. There was a really neat old house with a rental unit in back for $176,000 which said it had a lot of potential. Scary wording,but that was by far the cheapest house in town with 3 bedrooms. Out of town 10 or 20 miles was a little cheaper, but the difference would have been made up in gas. Jason's dad talked to a bank guy up there who knew a realtor, and asked him what he'd suggest for our situation. The realtor said a lot of people buy a trailer house. I hadn't thought of that, and actually didn't like the idea and fought it for a couple of days. But the more I thought about it the better it sounded. We talked to our realtor again and she sent us a couple of listings. She said those were a hot item this time of year. So we decided to take a quick jaunt to Moscow after our stake conference last Sunday. My wonderful Mother in law came down to watch the kids for us, get them to school,piano lessons, and baseball practice the next day. The drive is really beautiful and mostly easy, just long. About 10 hours. We go up through Montana, almost to Butte, up to Missoula, then over to Coeur d'Alene and straight down to Moscow. We went right past Mullen, where Dad graduated from high school. Anyway, we looked at houses for about 2 1/2 hours Monday, ate lunch, and turned around to come back home. We looked at that 100 year old house. It was right by the university, and could really be a neat old house if someone had the time and money to put into it. But it needed a new roof and siding (everything was moldy -- I guess that's a really common problem there), the yard was small, the rooms were tiny and set up weird, the washer was in the kitchen and the dryer was in a round corner room on the other side of the house. It needed a lot of TLC. It did have a neat wood staircase that wound up the wall in the entryway. One of the trailers we looked at is very promising though.It's just south of Moscow, in a really nice park. Probably the nicest one I've ever seen. It's quiet and clean, with well kept lots. The lots are spaced out more than usual. This trailer is at the end of a cul desac, so it's got a bigger yard. And the house itself is a double wide with 1848 square feet. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, a nice sized kitchen, dining room, big family room, and a laundry room/ mud room.I've always wanted a mud room. There's also a little office area that will be perfect for my sewing. With the money from the sale of this house we'll be able to buy it outright so we won't have to qualify for a loan, which we probably wouldn't be able to do anyway with no income.And the lot rent is only $230 a month, which is a lot less than any rent or mortgage payment we'd have otherwise. I will continue to take on whatever sewing I can get to stretch what we'll have leftover, but I won't have to get a full time job out of the house. That's important tome, because Jason will be gone a lot for the next year and I want to be home for my kids. We've offered on it and the owner has counter offered,so we'll find out tomorrow if they accept our counter-counter offer.
I spent this past week staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning working on prom dresses. I got swamped at the last minute, but we've been spending a lot of money lately, so it wasn't a bad thing. Yesterday was the prom so that's over, thank goodness! Jason's parents and one of his brothers and family came down from Rigby to help us paint outside. The weather was perfect. We'd had nasty winds and even snow all week, so I was worried, but we couldn't have asked for a better painting day. The temperature was right around 60, there were a few clouds to shade the sun, hardly a breeze. We scraped and painted our back fence, the eaveson the house, and the big toy in the back yard. I was amazed we got so much done! It was so wonderful. Never would have happened without the help. What a relief. Now all we have left is to de-junk and put the house on the market. Yeah, right. There's always more that can be done,but we're getting there. I'm feeling a lot less anxiety now about the whole thing.
Dylan is in little league baseball. His team is not the greatest, but they're playing a ton better than last year, and have a much better coach. They've played 5 games and won once, with a couple of close calls. Last year they won only one game the whole season, and even that was close. He enjoys the game though, and that's what matters. He has a couple of games around the time of Kate's baptism the 31st of this month,so hopefully some of you will be able to attend one. That would be fun.
The girls take turns having concerns about moving. We try to talk them through it and they usually feel better, but there's been a lot of female emotion around here lately -- me included! Jason is very patient with us all. Everyone who wants to come is invited to Kate's baptism. We have lots of room here.
Jonah is just blissfully happy. He's too young to worry about moving.He keeps me smiling. What a fun little guy. I'm going to miss my shadow next year. I know I say that a lot.
That about sums up for us. I haven't checked the recipe blog or the other one yet. It's kind of a pain with dial up. Maybe we'll go high speed after the move.

-Mindy