The Saga Continues

Hola!

A couple of weeks have slipped by…wonder where they might have gone? Could it be that I’ve lost track, along the roller coaster I ride almost daily? Ha. The days all seem to run together, it is true.

One aspect of life right now that adds to the chaos, is housing in general. Frank pointed out, if we were “just” selling a house and buying a house, it would be crazy enough. But we have actually been dealing with the thousands of details of:

1) Selling a house
2) (trying to) buy or rent in Massachusetts
3) Getting our renters OUT of our house here
4) Getting ourselves of the house WE are renting
5) Figuring out temporary housing in MA, since we are in limbo & don’t have a permanent house there, yet.

So. Not one or two, but FIVE major events going on.

We are closer to the magical “Closing Day” on the house…could be this Thursday or Friday, so I am very happy about that.

We have been trying to get a place to live on the other end. Complicated by the fact that the Boston area has not been effected by the otherwise national housing downturn, we are groaning that housing is outrageously expensive out there. Pickins are slim, one might say.


We had one bright possibility about 10 days ago, certainly not a “perfect” house, but it showed up Thursday on the MLS listing. It caught my attention because it met lots of our criteria (distance from work/church/school, number of bedrooms, etc.) , and it was only a little higher priced than the house we just sold! “Hey, Frank, go look at this one,” I email to him. He goes to see it that afternoon, calls me and says, “You know, it has some things we’d have to change and/or learn to live with, but you’d like this one.” He goes to one more appointment that afternoon, and calls me that night. We decide this would be a good one to put an offer on…he says, “in the morning I’ll call our Realtor and let’s make an offer.”

**Just to interject here, the market in MA is not frantic. Homes sell in 1 to 2 months, it’s not like you usually have to make snap decisions.**

So, he calls me at 7 a.m. the next morning (10 a.m. Boston time). “Well, this house went on the market YESTERDAY,” he reminds me, “and on that first day, TEN people went to see it, one made an offer, and they ACCEPTED it.” I couldn’t believe it.

Our options are not plentiful. But there are a few that could work, that would just take a bit of remodeling…or a LOT of remodeling, in 1 case…anyway if we go that route, we would like to rent for a time, so we don’t have to LIVE in it while all that mess is going on.

The kids have been instructed to pack first for the next 2 weeks, then for the next 6 months, and the rest of our stuff will be stored…?!?!? Ha. There are still so many “what ifs” in the equation, we can’t pin down much just yet! (I am sort of a planner—read: “control freak to the nth degree”, so this part is very nearly killing me.)

It will all be fine. We are prepping the kids for air mattresses! Maybe if we rent while we are remodeling something, we will want to save money by NOT renting a full set of furniture in the house. Maybe the kids will use air mattresses, and boxes to store clothes? They’re young. We’ll call it a 6-month-long sleepover.

The moving company packers come tomorrow, to destroy the house. We’ll always have the laptop with us while we are in transit, and Internet connections at different spots will let me check email. Our cell phones stay the same, of course!

Here is a photo of the kids on one of our hikes. TERESA has already decided on the house we should buy in Massachusetts. It should be quite obvious, because (and I quote) “it has a good climbing tree in the front yard.”



Have a glorious week! Love, Kari

Signing Parties & Swimming Pools

Hola!

Another brain-bouncing week! We had Frank home for the weekend again, so that was wonderful. Friday – Happy 4th of July!! – was a day of swimming, concert in the park, and BBQing with the Clears, a very fun family across the street from our “old” house. The fireworks display was later that evening.

The “Signing Party” refers to the reams of tedious paperwork Frank and I went through yesterday…most likely, we will not be here for the closing on our house, so the Realtor sent over the majority of the paperwork. (I HOPE it’s the majority…must have taken 2 hours to go through it all…)

I’m looking around and wondering to myself: are the movers REALLY coming in 2 weeks? The answer, of course, is yes they are! I am extremely happy it is “the movers,” and not me driving around to different grocery stores, asking daily for boxes, and packing everything, and moving it ourselves. For the first 3 moves of our marriage, we moved ourselves. Wow. I can’t begin to tell you how much better it is with a crew of movers!!! (This will be our 9th move in 16 years, we counted. Life is never boring, is it?)

I think I will post a couple of photos from swimming Friday. We went to the high school because they have diving boards—that is extra fun for the kids, and actually for Frank, too! He had some good dives off the high dive. Teresa and David have tried front flips off the HIGH dive, if you can believe THAT! (I didn’t, until I saw it…the fearlessness of youth?!?)

First, Frank "flying" off the high dive..."


Then, Teresa flips off the low board:


David dives:


And Kara is not to be outdone:


And since the Olympic trials are going on right now, I do have to show the sequence of Frank's competition diving material: jump, touch toes in air, then dive in:




(I'll let you know which day you can watch him in Beijing next month.) Have a glorious week! Love, Kari

As My Brain Unwinds...

Hola!

I have been in a calm type of daze for a day or two…my brain is just trying to absorb a few big things, I think, and I will just let it do that!

After four months of trying to show and sell our house, we finally have an offer and the house is “in escrow.” In a very basic nutshell because that’s really all I know, that means the buyer now has 45 days (sometimes it’s 30) for the financing to go through for his loan, and to have a house inspection, and then you can have the closing and he can move in.

Like I said, it has been 4 rather painful and nerve-wracking months of hand-wringing and walking around on eggshells, trying to appease some often temperamental renters as we tried to show the house.

The Whitesells (Frank’s parents) will get a kick out of this one: during one conversation with Frank, they said “When we were selling our house in a bad market, the Realtor said it takes 50 showings to sell your house.” Well guess what! A weekend ago, we had showings numbers 51 and 52, and BOTH of those people put offers on the house! Kinda funny.

(BTW, I am not typing this news in celebration, just yet. It is a very important milestone and a great step, but I also know it is not a Done Deal. We very much appreciate people’s prayers during this transition for our family, and ask for those to please continue?)

Another thing for my brain to absorb is that THIS week, we do NOT have to ask-for-help-and-donations-and-call-to-remind-people-that-they-signed-up-and-can-you-come-after-all-to-the-middle-school, to help us PAINT! We took four days to do it, 3-hours each day, and the physical labor part of the project itself is now finished. David and I plodded through those 2 weeks, and yesterday Frank and David returned everything to people who loaned equipment, took back supplies to Home Depot we didn’t use, etc., etc.

Sometime I may blog on details of the project. For now I will just say Whew, and appreciate the fact that I’m not crouched in a corner rocking, counting specks of dust or something.

Kari

David's Turn

Hola! A couple of blog entries ago, I bragged about Teresa and Kara and their awards recognition at school. This time I can focus on David. Last month, he helped with a youth yard sale, to raise funds for summer camps. Those kids got up pretty early in the morning to get started selling! Here is a page about that.


Then there was the 7th grade awards night, at his Middle School a couple of weeks ago. It was fun to attend the assembly in the auditorium, and hear teacher comments about each student. They were coached to “dress nicely,” and there were some very different interpretations of that phrase! David’s interpretation was to wear his Sunday best, with dress pants and jacket. I think just one other student had on a jacket like that.

Some quotes from his teachers were that he puts forth 100% effort in all he does, and that he is kind and courteous. He has been in ASB (an elective class, kind of like Student Council or Student Government) this term. They had to apply and be “accepted” into the class. These kids help plan, organize and execute school events, and are required to put in 20 or so service hours a term. David has helped set up and clean up teacher luncheons and school dances, and has worked after school at the Student Store. He has also helped individual teachers after school in their classrooms. I think it’s a great elective, and shows the kids there is more to these events than just showing up!

Here is his scrapbook page for the 7th grade Awards Night.


Paper/embellishments: Correen Silk’s Chore Day e-paper kit, http://store.scrapbook.com/digital-scrapbooking.html, also Jen Reed, Moments in Time;
Saab jelly beans; Tags by Verena Karolyi

David also completed his Life in Boy Scouts back in April, which means he can now be working towards his Eagle. We are in the middle of his project right now, helping out his Middle School. He and other scouts, over the course of 2 weeks (4 sessions, spaced a few days apart), are prepping, putting primer on, and painting the area
underneath the stage, and the 16 doors of closets lining the back wall of Sequoia’s auditorium. (If I type more details about that, I will hyperventilate. Suffice it to say I’m juggling a little too much right now. Another day, I will share more.)

I am a little biased, I know, but we sure like having David around. He’s a neat part of our family.

Love, Kari

Father's Day

Hola and Happy Father’s Day!

This is a very fun day because Frank is HERE, isn’t that wonderful! We get him for 48 hours, including a few hours on Father’s Day.

Here is the Origin of Father's Day, which you may or may not know:

Sonora Dodd, of Washington, first had the idea of a "father's day." She thought of the idea for Father's Day while listening to a Mother's Day sermon in 1909.

Sonora wanted a special day to honor her father, William Smart. Smart, who was a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife died while giving birth to their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington state.

After Sonora became an adult she realized the selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. It was her father that made all the parental sacrifices and was, in the eyes of his daughter, a courageous, selfless, and loving man. Sonora's father was born in June, so she chose to hold the first Father's Day celebration in Spokane, Washington on the 19th of June, 1910.

Of course, I am thinking about my dad today. I gave a talk in Sacrament Meeting on "Leadership," and included a few examples of him from our family, growing up. I created these pages for my kids’ scrapbooks, in his honor (you can click on them to enlarge--I know the old photos of him are tiny in that 2nd one). These are photos of some of the cousins and family at the funeral last September, in Tucson. It was good to be with family, even though it was a sad event. I hope to do more pages of him, after my mom sorts through the photos she has, and gives some to the rest of us.

I just desperately don’t want my children to "forget" him. I know my kids won’t really know him like I did. But at least with photos, they'll remember what he LOOKED like, and that makes people more real. It's a start.




(Paper by AmyLeigh's Designs, godigitalscrapbooking . Elements by Jessica Alger, godigitalscrapbooking. Butterfly by Vicki Stegall, Oscraps.)

"A father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be."

Have a great day! Love, Kari

Speaking, Reading, Teaching

Hola!

Well, a good news item is that my carpets DID go back to normal! (See previous blog, after they were cleaned last week.) Whew! That was a huge relief, and it only took 1 or 2 days.

Otherwise, it was a good set of speakers in our Stake Conference. This was a fun thing, after the fact of course: Teresa (10 yrs old) gave a talk in Stake Conference! Yep, the building was full, after they put chairs up in the gym and on the stage. There were probably 1000 people there. I have never given a talk for that many people. I was more nervous than SHE was! Ha. We put it together early last week, and she practiced out loud each night. She did a really good job, speaking slowly and clearly. Just before she got up, MY heart was pounding…I really was nervous for her, but she didn’t seem scared.

I put together these scrapbook pages for the girls, for when they received their Recognition Awards over the past couple of months.

Teresa (5th grade) got a reading recognition award. She reads like crazy, and has taken “reading counts” quizzes on so many books. Each book, depending on length and difficulty, may be worth 10 points, or it may be worth 30 (think “Lord of the Rings” trilogy for that many points). This year she has earned 750 points! Very cool. (Here is Teresa's page. You can click on it to enlarge it.)


Kara got her award a couple of weeks ago. Hers was “Future Teacher” recognition. Her teacher says she is always helping someone in her 2nd grade class, or explaining if they don’t get it, or making sure they finish an art project or other work before everything gets put away. I didn’t even know they gave that one out. Very nice!

(Templates by Kissed Studio., paper by Rebekah Jennings/Merek Davis. Teresa's paper by Jilly Bean Designs)


I’ll have to talk about David’s another day. Have a great week! Love, Kari

Weekend Woes

Hola!

Wow, June, imagine that! The kids are SO counting down until summer. 7 and a half days left. My brain has been bouncing around like popcorn popping, but what is new, you ask… I’ll choose 2 things on my mind today/recently, then go to bed and start over tomorrow.

CARPET CLEANING. I love clean carpets! I am so happy this morning, after the ChemDry guys leave, with my freshly-raked carpets and instructions that “It will be dry in 3-4 hours.” I spend a few minutes just looking at the symmetrical formations, kind of soothing and therapeutic. Then I make a couple of phone calls.

I return to the glorious scene of my sparkling carpets, to find…BUBBLES. (What??!?) yes, bubbles in the living room carpet, like a groundhog has funneled under the rug, leaving a long, skinny bubble…and oh, look, there’s another one over there, and –yes, over there, too?? What have I done?!? By chalking ONE thing off my list, now I have added SIX. I must now call the Chem-Dry people to come back again, have a carpet stretcher come out and re-stretch this carpet…get chem-dry to pay me for it...the list goes on. I kick myself for trying to be in the spring-cleaning mode.

Well, this bubble thing has never happened to me before, but my friend tells me it is not uncommon and it has happened in her house before. The carpet absorbs all the moisture from the cleaner, and it gets “bulky,” or maybe a little “bigger” than it was before…it bubbles up. Relax, she says, when the carpet dries out it will go back to normal. I am holding my breath.

GAS PRICES RISING HOURLY. No, I’m not even kidding. It is like the Twilight Zone. Last Thursday evening, driving by my usual station, I see that gas is $4.09 for a gallon of premium unleaded. Friday morning I fill up at that station for $4.15 per gallon. I drive by the same intersection that evening again, and it is $4.25, and the NEXT morning? $4.31. I can't believe it. (Just for a tiny consolation: tonight I fill the other car, and it is back down to $4.25. Silver Linings to my clouds!)

There’s my brain-bouncing update. We’ve had some fun end-of-school-year activities…hopefully I can get the photos on the computer and share some soon.

Have a great week! Love, Kari