back it up!

Where has the week gone??
Wasn't it JUST Monday? I really hope the whole summer doesn't fly by this fast!

Okay, just to organize my thoughts a bit...
pictures and posts:
my only goals for today were to both edit pictures and play with my camera. I have hundreds of pictures from the last two weeks or so and I need to go through and edit, crop, delete, etc. and I just keep putting it off. So today was my day to get them all transferred onto the computer and dive right in. Also, staying in the photo mode, I was going to take some time to really play around with my new camera and try a few things out, get a little more comfortable venturing out of the auto settings and to really start learning and practicing. Anyway, started a little of that, but then went to go look for my owners manual to help me quickly figure out how to adjust little things here and there, and I can't find it anywhere. I guess we re-organized the house a little too well. So I'm just a little frustrated at the moment and I need to just step away from the camera. I have some pics to share from the last few days (and of course catch up on my record no pics over here), but I'm going to take a break and hopefully get back to those this evening.
Other things I've been meaning to post about (and will elaborate on later):

• We had a little "pool party" over here yesterday with some friends, so I have a few pics to share from that.
• Savannah's last day of preschool today
  
• We're mostly healed up... Ryan's back to walking (and driving)

And I'll try to stop babbling so much and post more pictures.
More pictures of the cute kids-- not the ugly feet. I promise LOL!


BUT for now...
the biggest news...
AMAZING news...

We sold our house!
It is amazing. It was on the market for less than a week, which is an absolute miracle around here. (Have I mentioned how saturated the market is around here and how long people sit with their houses listed? There are houses still for sale right now that we walked through when we were looking for this one 14 months ago.) And it's not even like we had it priced real low, which is what a lot of people ask when they hear how fast it went. It was actually priced a lot higher than the realtors and assements projected.
It went on the market a week ago Monday (but was under the wrong address, so it didn't even come up in any area searches for days after that) and we then had an Open House on Sunday which brought 10 couples through. One of those couples left the open house talking about making an offer and made an appointment to come back the next morning with their realtor. Monday morning they were in our house for two hours(!!) and our realtor had an offer in her hand from them not an hour later. Granted, it wasn't a full price offer, but we did a bit of negotiating and came out quite satisfied.
Like I said before, we weren't terribly worried about the house sale thing, as if we couldn't sell it on our own by the time we left Pfizer would buy us out (we would lose no money) and take care of it. But there were incentives to selling it on our own before that time, not the least of which being actually selling it for more than we paid last year.
We were honestly counting on ending up selling it to Pfizer because of the market around here, and even if we did happen to find a buyer to pay the price we were asking in the limited amount of time we had, still the majority of perspective buyers here make offers contingent on the sale of their home, which we couldn't accept going through the relocation benefits. And which we wouldn't want to accept even if we could because like I said, houses don't sell around here!
Our buyers just moved here from Idaho and have been renting for the past three months and were really anxious to find a house-- perfect for us!
Also we close on our new house June 25th. Our buyers wanted to be out of their rental June 25th and pushed for an "early" closing of June 22nd-- perfect for us! We were having to stay up here through July, but now Ryan simply let his 'higher-ups' know that we have to be out of our house by then and they shuffled things around a bit so he can leave mid-June. The movers will get everything off, we'll close on this house on Friday the 22nd, have the weekend to take a nice leisurely drive down to St. Louis and be just in time to close on our new house on Monday. Could the timing have worked out any better?!

It's just so nice to not have to worry about any of this house stuff any more. To not have to keep the house up and be ready for realtors and buyers to come through, to not have to decide how to deal with our realtor (we were having some ISSUES with her), to just not have to wonder what's going to happen.
We are amazed that it all worked out so fast. And so perfectly. I can't believe it.
But then again, it's not so amazing; not so unbelievable. God really does have His hand in all of this. I'm just so thankful for the nice reminder.
Thanks for your prayers!

one year ago today

... we closed on our house.
Two days ago
it went back on the market.






One year ago we were so excited to have our first house. It's a great house. It has exceeded our expectations in so many ways. We couldn't have imagined in the quick glimpse we had before deciding on this house how perfectly it suited us. We found in the months following our move how our belongings just seemed to "fit" in this home. Pieces of furniture that fit just perfectly into certain nooks or corners of this space. Closets or cupboards that fit some of our storage needs just right. I remember thanking God often for providing this home for us and having hand-picked just the right one, a better choice than we even knew "we" were making at the time.
We have more space here than we know what to do with... plenty of room to spread out, but still feeling comfortable and not separated. And the yard. Our beautiful, easy-care yard where the kids have room to run (and run and run) and play to their hearts' content.
I will certainly be sad to leave this home. If we could take our house and yard and move it with us, we would.

But now we're leaving it. Please pray that the right buyer comes along for us. As much as we've been blessed by living here for the past year, I would hope we could get just a little more blessing out of it, if you know what I mean!

And pray we find that our new home is just as (or more) right for us as a family and as where we will be in the coming years.

Hurry Up and Wait

So we thought we had the moving thing figured out.
We have a closing date on the new house, our house should be on the market any day which gives it enough time so that if we don't find a buyer before we leave here we can use Pfizer's "safety-net" meaning they buy it from us and worry about it so we don't have to, and we were ready for the movers to come and access all our "stuff" and set up a moving schedule for somewhere around the third week in June.
But then.
Yesterday Ryan finds out his higher-ups really need his group (naming him specifically as an example of who they'd like to be there) to stick around here in Kalamazoo preferably at least thru July. That would be all fine and dandy except for the fact that everyone on both ends of this relocation has said all along that it really doesn't matter when he moves to the STL facility, that everybody is pretty flexible, and whatever works best for us with our housing situation will be just fine. Until of course a few days after we actually make an offer on a house (which you know, usually contains a closing date, which you know, usually infers a moving date).
So now Ryan's trying to figure out who really needs him where, if we should try to push back our move dates, meaning fly down to close on that house but not move for another month after that, and so on and so forth.
I'd really rather move and get it over with. I hate knowing change is coming and then just sit around waiting for it to happen. Thinking and thinking and thinking about it. It's not like I can even get ready to move... the movers pack everything up for us.
I just want to get down there already and start getting settled in our new house, finding a church, looking at preschools, getting the kids in swim lessons, and all that good stuff. I've been waiting since January... enough already!!

Then!
Working with Pfizer to get their help (safety-net) in selling our house, we have to list our house in accordance with certain parameters such as an asking price that matches up with two separate realtors' Market Analysis of our home. Now everyone knows the housing market here right now sucks, so we were a little nervous about this whole Market Analysis thing. But the first realtor came through, turned in her analysis right away and her suggested price was actually right along the lines of where we hoping our price to be. Yay!
The second realtor came through the same day, then we didn't hear anything for two weeks, and then after all that, it turns out her suggested listing price is exactly what we paid for our house one year ago. Which wouldn't be that bad... except for the fact that we got this house for more than 15,000 less than they had originally listed it to sell! The previous owners had already moved and were really wanting to let go of this house fast. It is so irritating that she priced our house so low, as we have to go off of the average of the two prices.
All that to say, we have to list lower than we originally wanted to, so we are kind of bummed out by that. But hopefully it'll sell reasonably quickly (two other houses for sale in our neighborhood are at the same price, but are not nearly as big or nice as ours or with as big of a lot).

Too much frustrating news on a Monday. And after such a nice weekend too.
Oh well.

We have lots going on this week.
A Cheeky Little Monkeys playdate at the Barczak's tomorrow, a field trip with Savannah's class to the Binder Park Zoo on Thursday and I think this weekend we're planning on going up north with the Huffs. With lots of miscellaneous house fixing up/cleaning up to get ready to show to sell and stuff all in between.
Busy, busy!


p.s. Happy Birthday Greg (a day late)! Hope you like your new wheels!!!

And the answer you've all been waiting for...

So we made an offer on a house.
They accepted, so we're on our way to being Missourians. Or the Morrisons in Missouri I guess. We'll have to change our blog address!! LOL!
We picked house #4 by the way. Thanks for all your input... in the end, we kind of liked that this one was in the middle; still new enough that it's not too much work, but not so perfect that we can't make it "ours". And it is in a great neighborhood. We're excited about it.

Please keep us and the rest of this process in your prayers, as we still have a long way to go in getting out of this house, getting everything to fall in place timing-wise to get down there, and of course moving and settling into yet another new community.
It's strange.... we were in this exact same situation exactly one year ago. I think we actually put our offer on this house we're in on the table on the exact same day a year ago. Weird.
Anyway, we'll be moving the middle/end of June.
So that's the news for now. We'll keep you posted, and really-- thanks so much for all your thoughts, encouragement and help with this whole process. Whether you're praying for us, "helping" us decide on our next home, or just leaving a random comment on our blog... it really helps keep us sane, keep some perspective, and let's us know we have a few cheerleaders out there for us!


p.s. Happy Birthday Callum!! I really cannot believe you're a one year old already! Have a happy day sweet little boy!

At this rate we'll be homeless in St. Louis...

Alrighty.
We have narrowed our house choices down to four. I know... four is not real narrow.
But we've listed all our pros and cons for each house and we both have different favorites and we both have different least favorites and neither one of us knows what we really would pick if (and when) it comes right down to it.

So.
We need your help.
One of these four houses will be our next home.
We are putting our future in your hands.
Which one would you choose?

House #1
House #2
House #3
House #4

After you make your choice... here is our lowdown.
House #1:
*We like the layout, great playroom for the kids, the big yard, the location and the amenities with lake access
*We don't like tiny master bath, basement is limited space, no real guest bedroom, tons of wallpaper to remove.

House #2:
*We like that the house is practically brand new, HUGE bedrooms, nice open layout, and the freedom to finish the basement the way we want/need it.
*We don't like that it's so new the neighborhood is still developing, the cost of finishing the basement, and a high HOA fee without amenities.

House #3:
*We like that it is newer and we would not have to finish/change a thing, beautiful finished walk-out basement with 5th bedroom and 3rd full bath, and a nice fenced yard.
*We don't love the location (it's pretty convenient, just close to busyness), there is no fireplace, and not much storage or workshop/garage space.

House #4:
*We like the size of the house a lot... all the rooms are huge, big entryway, big bedrooms, potential of finishing our own basement, three car garage, and walking distance to the neighborhood pool, clubhouse, tennis courts, and playground.
*We don't like the size/limited usability of the yard, cost of finishing the basement (but the price of the house itself is lower so it kind of evens out), and it's an awesome neighborhood, but it's questionable as to how close/busy a new highway extention would come.


I really think we would be happy with any of them. We just can't seem to make a decision.
Maybe we'll just draw from a hat....
HELP!!