2/3/17 Back on the Horse

In some cowboy movies I've seen, a young man gets thrown off a horse and gets mildly hurt. Then he has to decide what to do next. Usually there is a mentor figure who tells him that he needs to "get back on the horse" or his fear will get the better of him. Today we figuratively "got back on our horse" of house hunting but first we visited Gram and Papa.
The Auswanderers have had a little device called a MyFi that has been getting them online the past few years. Recently it appears to have given up the ghost. Today I joined them in a visit to the AT&T store. After a lengthy wait we got to visit with Jack. He helped us pick out a replacement MyFi and got us set up. Set up back at 430 took a little longer than expected but we got the most important things done.
This afternoon Heidi and I met Diane to see two newer houses. Somehow I hadn't looked at one of the sets of pictures closely and I was quite surprised at how close it is to meeting our plan B needs. Plan A is to find a place in our price range ready to go. Plan B is to find a place that has the right layout that can be readily adapted to our needs. As always, there are still many questions left to answer but we liked it enough that we invited Gram and Papa to see it with us tomorrow. Will it be a good fit? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

2/2/17 Home from Humanitarian

I knew Heidi was not feeling well today when she decided not to go to Humanitarian. She loves both giving service and the sisters she serves with. They love her too. One sister called and offered to bring over dinner. Two other sisters, Dianna and Becky Kieffer weren't going to take no for an answer. They simply showed up with homemade chicken soup. When they arrived Heidi was lying on the couch. It is not usual for Heidi to take illness lying down. Her norm is to plow through regardless of how her body feels.
The rest of us tried to step up our game a bit to help out. Sarah and I went to the grocery store to pick up some much needed supplies. Sarah thought it was hilarious that our cart was filled to almost overflowing. While the two of us shopped the other kids pitched in to clean the kitchen. Our efforts weren't much compared to the dedicated efforts Heidi puts in but we hope she knows how much we love and appreciate all she does.

2/1/17 Better Sooner than Later

This morning we got a call from our friend Kerry Mortensen. In addition to being the guy who donates bread to the neighborhood he is also a contractor. He went by the house on Halifax to make an estimate of what it would take to replace the roof. He called and suggested that we run, not walk, away from this house. The roof was built illegally and would have required $30-50k to fix it right. Combined with the owners saying they weren't willing to come down $20k only $10k and it's time to move on. Sad to feel like we were so close and yet so far. Still, we are very blessed to have learned about the defects early on. We will get our earnest money back and now we can look for a house more aware of things to watch out for.
In the meantime life goes on. The kids are all doing well in school. Joseph is learning a lot from being a big brother. He is often the one who does something that bugs Peter but quite often he learns from his mistake and then cheers Peter back up. This represents great progress. Papa also noticed that "Peter doesn't shriek all the time anymore". They are both doing well at learning their shapes and numbers. At times like these it is good to count our many blessings. We have faith that Heavenly Father has a plan. We just need to believe and continue to act on our faith.

1/31/17 A Few Rays of Hope

This morning I had a phone meeting from our new office with a client. It went well and we should be able to make some solid improvements to the report we make for them.
This afternoon Heidi and I got a call from Diane. We'd been looking online at houses and feeling pretty discouraged. She reported that the seller of the house was willing to come down on the price significantly to cover much of the expensive cost of the needed repairs. Heidi and I spent much time consulting with my father and praying to know what to do. It was a tough choice as some issues, like flood risk due to incorrectly built entryways still can't be fixed. After prayer I felt to run some financial numbers. The lower price would allow us to fix the most expensive problems and get us into a house that meets our needs at an affordable price.
There is still much that can go wrong. We need to get the final list of repairs over to the seller and agree about what they will and won't fix. The house also still needs to appraise properly for the loan to go through. Can the house qualify for insurance that covers flood damage?
Heavenly Father is revealing one step at a time. The next step is we cancelled our cancellation. If things don't work out we are out some time but we can resume our house hunt. On the upside if things do work out we think we will be in a house that will meet our needs. We are in the Lord's hands.

1/30/17 Professional Inspection

Today the main event was the professional inspection of the home we have hoped to buy. Gary Cornia, a longtime friend and neighbor to Heidi's family did the inspection. He was assisted by Charlie Cluff and electrician, longtime friend and current bishop of the. Crosspoint Ward. The news was not good. The roof is in bad shape and needs to be replaced years ago, the AC units are 20 years old and the water heater is 12. The electrical box is a fire hazard and several other items need to be repaired. Some things can't be repaired like some outside sidewalks at or above inside floor level. This creates a flooding risk. They recommended that we walk away. This was completely unexpected by us and Diane our Realtor. We expected a few things, especially given the age of the home, but not like this.
After a couple of hours to think about it Gary invited us over to show us the pictures. This was enough to convince us that we needed to cancel our bid for the house. I can say that all of us feel a deep sense of disappointment.

1/29/17 Two Ward Conferences

Today Val Vista Ward and Crosspoint Ward both had their ward conference. Heidi had duties with stake primary and I was on tech duty. The wireless mics picked today to go intermittent, of course during the stake president's remarks. Luckily the back up wired mic we had worked great. We were blessed to have that option. The kids were great for us today. David and Rebecca babysat during the first ward conference. They attended their classes and allowed us to do our callings during the second.
In the afternoon/evening we worked on the calendar for next week.

1/28/17 Princess Park

This morning Sarah and Heidi went to Alison Hallsted's baptism. She and Sarah are good friends. Later Sarah went to her birthday party. She gave her a purse that Heidi made and a couple of pinecones that she painted.

After the party Heidi wanted to check out the park near the house we are trying to buy. One street over from ours is Princess Drive and on it, about a block west, is Princess Park. Rebecca's twin friends Krissy and Missy joined us.

Rebecca especially loved this spinning toy. Also, notice the castle themed playground equipment.

TJ made huge progress in his skating ability today. He started out clinging to his mother's hand to keep from falling.

By the end he was skating slowly but completely on his own. He had a couple of falls but he was thrilled with his progress.

Joseph loved these contraptions that reminded us of giant pogo sticks.

This evening we were joined by Megan. We got to play a fun game of "ImagineIf". Our time with her this visit was too short. We pray that next time it won't take another five years before we get to see her in person.