And the winner is...

After 3 months of searching, we FINALLY have a contract on a house. Andrew likes to emphasize that this is still not a done deal, but our offer has been accepted, we've had the house inspected, and the loan is approved. Unless some unforeseen intervention occurs we should be settling on this house in 12 days. Its been an exhausting journey with too many houses, compromises, and details to remember, but here are the highlights of our house hunting process-

House #1: The Handy Man Special

This little gem was located in Sherwood Forest, right off of Locksley Lane, just a couple of blocks away from the Robin Hood swim club...need I say more? Seriously, this neighborhood was amazing. It also had great schools and was extremely close to the metro, which were two of our highest priorities. The average home in this neighborhood was about $200,000 over our price range, so when this foreclosure popped up, we jumped all over it. To say that this was a fixer-upper would be a severe understatement. This home boasted roof damage, water damage, mold in the basement, an 800 year old water heater, and lacked ALL major appliances. In the end we were outbid, and I think Andrew and I let out a sigh of relief once we got over our initial disappointment.

House #2: The Change of Heart

Despite it's rough exterior, this was a great house. Like the previous one, it was located in a very nice neighborhood with fantastic schools. It was also on a 1/2 acre lot, had 4 large bedrooms on the main floor, and one of the nicest basements we saw during our entire search. The downside? It was further out from the city then we would have liked. We made an offer, but after a couple of days we withdrew based off of Andrew's work commute.

House #3: The Stalemate

We never actually made an offer on this home, but I wanted to include it just because Andrew hated it so much. I saw this home first and told our Realtor that I was sure "Andrew would love it". It was cheap, and had most of the other criteria we wanted. Andrew, however, HATED it the moment he walked though the door. I'm still not completely sure why. Maybe this house wronged him in some other life.

House #4: The Heartbreaker

Like a bad break up we've tried to block this one out of our minds. The bottom line is that this was an estate sale which was extremely underpriced. It was a great house, in a great neighborhood, with great schools, at a great price. There were multiple offers and everyone (including us) kept upping their bids while the sellers kept dragging their feet. At one point we were told that they accepted our bid, and while I was faxing back a document to our Realtor, a higher offer came in. It was a sad day when we learned we were outbid.

House #5: The Standup

We initially (naively) thought that a short sale meant that the seller was short on time and wanted to sell their home quickly. That notion could not have been further from the truth. In reality, a short sale means that the owner has to sell at a price lower than what they currently owe on their home- meaning they are short on funds. The tricky part is that with a short sale your offer has to be accepted by both the owner and the owner's bank. On average, this process takes about 60-90 days. Our offer was accepted by the owners, but we waited 2 months (while putting offers on other houses) to hear back from the bank. We never did hear back, because on day 60 we withdrew our offer. This is what leads us to...

House #6: The Winner

And here we have it, our soon to be (fingers crossed) home. While we were waiting for house #5 to go through, house #6 came onto the market. Located in Andrew's brother and parent's neighborhood, this was a neighborhood we loved, but never thought we would be able to afford. When we found this house (a foreclosure), barely within our price range, we told our Realtor we wanted to check it out. The problem? The listing agent did not want this house shown until the next Monday and we were leaving the Sunday before to go to Cape May for a week. Our solution was to sign a contract before we left, and have Andrew's mother and sister-in-law go look at the house for us. If they liked it, then our Realtor would submit our pre-drawn contract. As it turned out, they did like it, and our offer was submitted. About one week later we found out that our offer was accepted on the house we had never seen.

Crazy? Yes, but I'm glad it happened this way. I can't even begin to describe how terrible it is to put an offer on a house and then wait, and wait and WAIT to hear back. It is all you think about. Every time the phone rings your heart stops. You lose sleep thinking about neighbors and projects that need to be done on one particular house. All of this stress, only to find out that your offer was not accepted. It is horrible. Since my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were the ones who saw this house, they were the ones stressing and losing sleep over it. It was a very welcome break for us!

We've since seen the house, and all I can say is that we love it. We're still losing sleep thinking about neighbors and house projects, but at least we know this will be our home.

Independence Weekend Fun

There are 5 boys in Andrew's family. The youngest, Peter, has Downs Syndrome. While there are many things Peter enjoys, he absolutely LOVES when all of his brothers are together. This happens at least twice a year, and when it does, Peter walks around with the most gleeful smile you could possibly imagine. To put it mildly, Peter is in "brother heaven".

One of these get-togethers typically falls on the 4th of July. I'm not sure when this tradition started, but it has evolved into something I really look forward to each year. There is a neighborhood block party, parade, pool party, slip-in-slide (for the kids) and LOTS of great food. Best of all, my children are in "cousin heaven". With 15 of them, how could they not be?

The block party and parade take place in Andrew's brother (Grant) and parent's neighborhood (they live in the same neighborhood, just a few blocks apart). And now, in about 2 weeks it should be our neighborhood as well. That's right, we finally have found a house. If we get to settlement without any glitches, we'll be moving to the street behind my in-laws...more to come on that later.

A few of the cousins (below) with their "slip and slide" game faces. Obviously they take this very seriously.

Cape May, Father's Day and our Anniversary

I'm very fortunate to have low maintenance men in my life. There's never any pressure to find the "perfect gift" for birthdays or holidays because no one expects anything more than a phone call (ok, maybe Andrew expects a little more, like a card or something, but you get the point). It really makes my job as a daughter and wife quite nice. Both Andrew and I have wonderful fathers who are extremely easy to love.

This Father's Day we ended up in Cape May. Andrew's work took him to NYC for the week, so I decided to hightail it home for some beach time...or so I thought. It actually rained the majority of the time we were there. The weather, however, was compensated by the fact that my sister Ashley was in from Utah. I was also able to spend some girl time with my best friends from high school, Kim and Jill. Andrew joined us for Father's Day weekend (which involved taking a train to Philly and then a bus to Cape May), and the rain finally let up on Friday- giving us at least one good beach day.

The Monday following Father's Day was also our 8th wedding anniversary. Yes, that's right, its been 8 years (I had to do the math several time to make sure I was correct). Its unbelievable that so much time has already passed. I'm not one to be overly mushy, especially on a public forum, so I will leave it at this- I feel extremely blessed to have such a great catch.

Luke with crazy Aunt Ashley

Luke with his make shift sling (he hurt his arm)...we are a classy bunch I tell you.

6 Months: The Magical Age

Afton is now 6 months old and hands down, THIS is my favorite age. Why you ask? Babies at this age are just plain sweet. They smile, discover new things each day (like their toes), sleep during the night and most importantly....they are immobile. There is nothing not to like about this age- especially when you are comparing a six month old to a 3 and 5 year old.

At this point in the parenting game, I feel that Andrew and I have been exposed to the majority of what a toddler and preschooler can offer. We’ve been mortified by public meltdowns, Poison Control is programmed into our phone, we've made ER visits, cleaned up insane messes and made enough apologies to last a lifetime. The bright side is that these incidences seem to be dissipating the older my kids get. I’ve been excited at the thought of having children who only become more reasonable and mature with age. What I was not expecting, and what has caught me totally off guard, is the back talking. Suddenly we have a 5 year old who loves to use the word “hate” and says things like “I don’t like your rules. I want to live in MY OWN house”. He now also feels the need to articulate his little observations.

No, I still maintain that 6 months is my favorite age. What a shame it is so short lived.

Attack of the Butterflies

Every year from May until September I see a large sign advertising the annual butterfly show at our local conservatory. Every year I say I'm going to go, and every year I decide that $6 for adults and $4 for children is just WAY too much money to spend looking at butterflies.

Well, every year except for this year.

This was the year that I finally broke down and decided that it was high time we saw those darned butterflies. Can I just say that it was the best $14 I've spent in a while? I wouldn't even be able to guess how many butterflies they had packed into that greenhouse. (hundreds? thousands?) We literally had to duck when we first walked in to avoid all of the swarming butterflies. Pictures could never do this place justice. Maybe a video would adequately capture the butterfly insanity. Hands down, our favorite was a large black and blue beauty which refused to stay put for more than 2 seconds. Others weren't so flighty, which allowed for closer observation, and we even had a few land on us.

Who knows, attending the annual butterfly show may have to become a family tradition.

Graduation Day

Recap of the last 9 years:

July 2000- Andrew and I meet and start attending BYU that fall
June 2001- we get married
May 2004- we graduate from BYU
Sept. 2004- Andrew begins his masters’ program at American University
May 2006- Andrew graduates from AU
Sept. 2006- Andrew begins his second masters' degree at Johns Hopkins
May 2009- Andrew graduates from JHU

Of course some other major events occurred, but the point is, Andrew has been in school for (count em) 9 straight years.

Last Friday was Andrew’s graduation from Johns Hopkins University. I don’t think I realized how proud I have been until I watched him walk across the stage to receive this last diploma. When we graduated from BYU I was too busy being proud of myself to even give Andrew much thought. He chose not attend his AU graduation, so there really wasn’t much closure or reflection there. But this graduation seemed different- mostly because it will be his last and there seemed to be some finality to it all, like a huge chapter in our lives has been closed.

Based off of my observations, I would say that this is the degree Andrew has enjoyed the most. The late nights have been hard, but the course work interesting (at least to him) and relevant to his work. There were many occasions where he would come home and excitedly try to explain things like “credit derivatives” to me (if there ever was a lost cause, this would have been it).

Although I was simply a bystander during this whole schooling process, it feels good to have Andrew done. Both of our parents were able to attend the graduation, along with his brother Peter and our children. The biggest sacrifice of the day came from Sammy who had to miss his own preschool graduation on account of his father's graduation (I'm joking about the sacrifice part). It really was a lovely graduation, and again, Congratulations Andrew!

Alms for the Poor?

Late last night it finally hit me- we are homeless! Before people start sending us money, let me clarify, we are now living with Andrew' parents so technically we have a home- just not a home of our own.

Let's back track...

When we accepted an offer on our condo in March we scheduled our settlement date for mid-May. Six weeks would be plenty of time for us to buy a home, right? WRONG! Finding the home we may potentially spend the rest of our lives in is taking a little bit longer than we anticipated. And to think we thought this would be easy!

Luckily, Andrew's parents only live 5 minutes away and have plenty of space to comfortably accommodate our family. They made it clear from the beginning that if we did not find a home by the time our condo sold we could move in with them. This knowledge saved us from multiple stomach ulcers and premature aging. We are extremely grateful to have such generous parents who have welcomed us with open arms.

During this past week I have experienced a broad range of emotions. As I was packing up our condo I was feeling extremely nostalgic. Sam was just a year and a half when we moved in and since then we have welcomed two more babies. Its where we have raised our children for the past four years, so of course there are countess memories associated with it. It has been such a simple and happy time of our lives.

I've also felt extremely panicked. Are we ready for the responsibilities and baggage that come with a house? Then of course there is the looming question... where on earth (well at least in Montgomery County) are we going to live?!?!?

But mostly, I've been feeling excitement. As much as we have loved our condo it is time to move on. I was excited yesterday thinking that it would be the last time that I would have to lug my children up 3 flights of stairs. Basically, I think I'm excited to start the next phase of our lives.

So, farewell condo, and thanks for the memories!