Spring Break

Here is our Spring Break (in reverse . . .  Friday to Monday)

On Friday we got to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa.  We ended by going to the park and then hanging out at their house for a while.

We went to Menchies

We saw a Humpback Whale 3D movie at the Planetarium with the Howdens after a delicious lunch at Litzas.

On Thursday we didn't have much planned, but we did leave the house for a little bit to go rescue my dad.  He had a dead battery in his truck so we took him to the store, got lunch on the way back, and ate it at my parents house.  I can't remember what else we did on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Molly discovered Legos and thinks they are pretty cool. We made a few things according to the directions and then she started building her own random objects. This one is a narwhal.  "Hey buddy, I hope you find your dad . . .  or you could be a rocket." - Molly

We visited the Build a Bear store at the mall.  The kids had fun.  Molly made a pink bear named "Stuffy" and Jack made a puppy named "Ruff Ruff Chewy."  I let them each buy one accessory for their new pets.  Jack first just wanted a pair of shoes for his dog, but after some persuasion from mom and dad settled on a Utah shirt (the shoes were only going to get lost).  Molly couldn't decide.  We tried several outfits, shirts, a cell phone, etc.  She finally decided on a blow dryer until we actually got to the check-out stand at which point she dropped the blow dryer for a princess tiara.  

Our purpose in going to Fashion Place Mall was to pick up a prize we had won.  When we went there a few weeks ago to look at Legos, I entered a contest and this was the prize!  We were excited to get an actual prize and not just a time share schpeal (which is what I thought it might be when the said we won something . . .  just kidding).

We also drove by Molly's new school on the way to the mall.  She will be going to Liberty Elementary in Murray District.  She will still attend Spartan Station daycare with Jack and then the bus will take her to school and back.  She's excited!  I did tell her a small lie, though.  Every time we've talked about kindergarten, she can't not focus on getting shots.  It has been totally freaking her out and consuming all discussion of kindergarten.  I finally just told her she doesn't have to get shots.  That is totally a lie, but at least she is now excited about kindergarten.  I'll probably just break the news to her about the shots . . . after she gets them.

On Tuesday we went to the zoo.  It was super crowded.  We saw some animals and ate macaroni.  James even went with us (he went with us to the mall, too).

On Monday we didn't have much planned, but needed to get out of the house.  We headed to see the elk and buffalo in South Jordan, then stopped at Wendy's and took our lunch to a random park to play at for a little while.

Monday started out with total vegetation on the part of the two children who needed some quality television and youtube time.  Jack started with his typical tractor videos and then ended with his other typically favorite show lately, Peppa Pig.

Molly watched a few television shows she hasn't seen since Christmas break.  She was at least doing puzzles in this picture to show that she was exercising her brain (which has not effect on the fact that we still watched a ton of television, youtube, and netflix during our week off).

It was a good week!!

The House Saga, Part 1

The History . . . 

James and I were married in 2007 and as the slightly more mature married couple that we were, decided to not throw money away on rent when we could buy a house.  After looking for houses we realized how crazy expensive everything was and there was no way (even with our mature, age 27 savings, that we were going to be able to afford a real house).  We found a little townhouse in Granger area overlooking Monroe Elementary and we went for it.  We had a little piece of grass and some flower beds and big living room and plenty of living space.  Unfortunately, we bought this place just before the crazy housing market crashed later that year.  People had been buying houses they couldn't afford.  Lending institutions were selling sketchy loans and everything tanked.  Financially, of course, we were fine.  Its just that we found ourselves immediately upside down in a house we had just bought.  That was ok.  We were planning to live there for a while and things would eventually turn around.

Fast forward a few years . . . .

Our family was growing.  We wanted a yard so that I could plant more flowers and kids could run around.  We wanted a garage so James could fix our vehicles out of the weather.  We wanted a space that would allow us to invite family over for dinner.  We wanted an unfinished basement where we could store crap and eventually design our own family room.  Interest rates were super low.  New construction costs were super low and we wanted to take advantage of the still tanked market and build a home.

The Good - We had (and still have) no debt and good credit, so the mortgage company was happy to lend us the money to start building our home.

The Bad - We talked to a realtor about selling our townhouse and he suggested a price about $45,000 less than what we owed.

The Compromise - To get the new house, we'd have to rent the old house until eventually the market turned around and we could sell it.


The Landlord Business . . . 

James can fix anything and I am pretty good at communicating, so we thought we could do the landlord thing.  And honestly, it wasn't that bad of an experience, it just takes time and energy that we don't have.  I've heard horror stories of renters trashing a home and owing thousands of dollars to the owners.  We didn't have perfect experiences, but at least we didn't have that.  Our home showed wear and our renters didn't always pay on time, but it worked.

Our current tenants had not been on an official lease since May 2014.  Near the end of the summer of that year, some long-time neighbors of ours moved out and their place sold.  We thought that maybe the time was right to get ours moving and we decided to list it.  I took Meranda as my interpreter and we had a conversation with our renters about putting the house up for sale.  We found a realtor.  We got her information because she sold another unit in our complex and she is a Dave Ramsey ELP.

We had the house on the market from August through the end of October.  It had very little movement and very little interest.  We weren't too discouraged because we hadn't banked on selling it, but rather just wanted to give it a shot.  We also knew that it just wasn't showing well.  The pictures weren't great.  It was super crowded with stuff inside.  The renters didn't always get our messages that there was going to be a showing and they would still be there when the potential buyers came.  It was a headache.

We decided that we did indeed want to sell, but that we'd have to do it without renters.  We took the house off the market to let it sit through the holidays.  Our plan was to get it empty, cleaned up, and ready to go by the first of March to hit the spring housing rush.  We set a budget of what we wanted to spend to get it spruced up.  We were ready to go.


They Wouldn't Leave . . . 

We notified our renters the first week of January that they would need to be out of the house by February 20th.  Though that was the deadline (and the end of their rent period), I told them they could have until the next weekend, February 28th, if they needed that time to start a new lease somewhere else, but that they absolutely HAD to be out by Saturday the 28th.  We didn't hear much from them and just went about our business.  Rent came due the end of January and I reiterated to them that February 20th was the day and they said ok.

Two weeks before that deadline rolled around, I contacted them to see what their status was.  What day would they be leaving?  When could I meet them to get the keys back and return their deposit?  Unfortunately, they said they hadn't found any place yet.

The next week rolled around and I contacted them again, and again, and again.  I tried to use my most firm voice that I could muster to let them know that they had to be out by the 28th.  They said ok.

Saturday the 28th came and I still hadn't heard from them about when to meet up and finalize things.  I headed over to the house to contact them once again.  It was after 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon and I happened to catch them as they were leaving.  They said they were going looking right then, but had been unable to find anything.  There were no signs of boxes.  There were no signs of packing up belongings.  They simply weren't moving.

At that point, I realized the "pushover" light on my forehead was lit up as well as the "sucker" light.  I needed another strategy.

I asked James and Ross to help.  We did some research and found out the basic eviction process and had a plan . . . sort of.  We pulled up an eviction notice online and James and Ross were supposed to go over and serve our renters with the notice on Sunday night.  Ross was going to interpret and James was going to be the enforcer to tell them they had to leave.  Unfortunately, they weren't home.  Ross wrote some kind of note on the back of the eviction notice and they put it on the door.

On Monday (now March 2nd), James swung by to see if there had been any activity.  None.  I spent a good hour on the phone with different courts and police jurisdictions to find out the proper method for evicting someone from your property.  It was going to be a mess.

About 5:00 p.m. on Monday, we got a call from our renters.  They were leaving and would be out by 8:00 p.m.  Huh?  Really?  Ok, then.

I was staying out of it at this point, so I sent James over around 8:00.  They had a few things still to move, but it was basically empty.  They said they would repair a few small holes in the walls and be gone completely by the next day if we would give them time.  We did and they were gone the next day.

March!

Holy Cow!  March is almost over and I've hardly recorded anything about it.  Here is the month in pictures.  Most of the month was spent stressing over our rental house, so these other events are really all a blur.

I finally finished young women's basketball.  We had to host the region tournament one night at our building and that was stressful only because the region people were cramping my style, but now I'll know what to expect for next time.

This is a photo of the backseat of our trusty, dusty vehicle.  This photo was taken on a Friday after I had cleaned and vacuumed the car on the previous Wednesday.  I really don't know how all this crap gets there.  My children really need to learn to not make messes (and stop taking new stuff from the house to the car every time we go somewhere).  Grrrr. 

One Saturday, the kids and I went to Fashion Place Mall to check out a large Lego exhibit of historic U.S. buildings.  The kids also got to play with some Legos.  The mall was insanely crowded and it was crazy, but I think we had fun.

We celebrated an early St. Patrick's Day on the Sunday before by adding some fake green facial hair to small children.

We celebrated the actual St. Patrick's Day by wearing green shirts and pants to school.

Finally, today we helped the neighbors move 2 loads of dirt from their driveway to their backyard.  They had rented a bobcat, but it was still a ton of work.  Once we finished, the kids got to go for a quick ride in the "tractor."  There is a certain 2 year old boy who's favorite past time beside playing in dirt is watching tractor videos on You Tube.  Needless to say, he may have died and gone to heaven for a few minutes this afternoon.

A Great Day To Be A Ute!

I love University of Utah Basketball!  This season did not disappoint.  Well, it did a few times, but it also had quite a few glorious moments, too.  It's been a long time of some extreme ugly betties to get to today, but it's about time things have turned around.

After a million years, our Runnin' Utes made it to the NCAA tournament and after even a million more, they won two games and made it to the Sweet 16.  That's pretty sweet, don't you think!  The Utes were seeded 5th and beat Stephen F. Austin and then Georgetown.  They lost to Puke Duke tonight (the battle of the Coach Krysekiqiewririsadksafisky's), but put up a very respectable fight.

I told several people at school today and even my mom tonight that I was glad they one won game in the tournament and ecstatic that they won two.  I figured they had nothing to lose and I was just going to enjoy watching the game.  I didn't intentionally lie, but man was I wrong.  Once that game started, I was all uptight and nervous.  I really wanted them to pull it out, but it just wasn't in the cards.  You win some. You lose some.  And, some just get rained out by Duke.

I added a seat to our season tickets this week.  We moved down a row.  Ticket prices went up.

I watched an ESPN special called, "I Hate Christian Laettner."  It was interesting.  I remember watching him hit some of those clutch shots on TV as a younger kid (in the days when I had giant posters of Larry, Magic, and Michael on my bedroom walls).  The movie was interesting and basically articulated all of the thoughts that I'd ever had about why I can't stand Duke Basketball.

It must just be in the blue uniform . . .  BYU, Duke, and then not to mention Kentucky.  Bleh.  At least it wasn't that particular blue team knocking the poor Utes out of the tournament for the 100th time.

It was a great season and I'm looking forward to next year!

Made it Past the 7 Year Itch.

"The Seven Year Itch" is actually not a movie I've seen, but as James and I now embark on our 8th anniversary, I thought it was a creative title.  Honestly, I don't know if I've ever seen a Marilyn Monroe movie at all.  Hmmm.  Maybe I need to expand my movie repertoire.

Anyway, this post is to say Happy Anniversary #8 to me and James (March 9th). If he gets me a gift for our anniversary, I'll be pleasantly appreciative, but I don't expect it.  I told him I wasn't getting him anything.  We've spent too much money in the last week anyway on our crazy townhouse and he and his dad are spending all afternoon tomorrow there, as well.  This blog post is it, James (though I'm sure I'll use our anniversary as an excuse to not cook food at our house on some day after the actual anniversary).  I hope you like it!

Happy Anniversary.

We are different.

You are silent.  I sometimes yell.  You make crumbs.  I clean them up.  I break things.  You fix them.  I lose patience with kids.  You get them to behave.  I fix food.  You eat it.  I make plans.  You come along for the ride.  You write papers.  I read them.  Puke makes me want to puke.  Puke doesn't phase you.

We are alike.

You save money so we can spend it on things we want.  I save money so we can spend it on things we want.  I like to go to basketball games.  You like to go to basketball games.  You let me do whatever I want to do.  I hope you feel like I let you do whatever you want to do.  I like to work in the yard.  You like to work in the yard.  I couldn't be a nurse. You couldn't be a school teacher.  You fall asleep on the couch.  I fall asleep at the computer.

Marriage is tough.  You have to be committed to be in it for the long haul.  We don't always get along and I think we drive each other crazy, but I'm grateful that I married you and I wouldn't want to be married to anyone else.

Thanks for being there for the last 8 years and here's to the next many more.

I could give you a song like this for our anniversary.  You know . . .  will you still love me when my legs don't work anymore . . . kind of stuff.  But, I don't look like her and neither of us can really dance.



I think this song is a bit more fitting for us . . . things are in control and out of control . . .  are you tired? I'm tired . . . but we've got it as much as anybody every has . . . .



Happy Anniversary!  I love you!

Haley



Thanks for the gift of the post. Love you much also! James