At last

FINALLY the day of the move arrived!! Saturday, August 6th. Our house on J Street did not belong to us anymore. Fortunately, our relator had arranged for us to have 5 days to vacate. Because we hadn't closed on Jennifer Way yet, we did not own it, and could not take possesion. One of the owners was still living there while he was working and waiting for us to close. He kindly consented to having us move our things into the garage. That is, the things from our J street house that we were living with. We hadn't touched the things in our storage unit yet!! :/

What a blessing to have so much support from our ward family!! We even had a brother from our new ward come, but Riverside ward was so efficeint, there was nothing for our new friend to do! :)

It made it feel a little more like home to have some of our friends walk through the empty house with us, and give us some good ideas for some of our space!

It was strange attending our new ward, and returning to our J Street house. We slept in sleeping bags, and on an air mattress. Monday morning we were off to sign papers, and officialy close on our house. We had to be sure before we left for L.A. (finally- we had already postponed our trip once, and were concerned we might have to cancel it..) that EVERYTHING was out of the J street house. Until the seller of Jennifer signed, and the transfer of ownership was recorded on the city records, we were officially homeless.

Earlier in the day, unbeknownest to Jason and I, the kids had decided to lock the door between the garage to the house. Jason had removed our house keys from our rings and had them inside on the ledge for our relator to give to the new owners. Our spare was still in the box on our front door that our relator had the code for, so that while the house was on the market, she could show it while we were gone, and also so that once we left town, she could get in to give the keys to the new owners. Well, by the time our relator let us in, and we were completely out of J street we got a very late start to my parents.

I did not fully realize how much we ALL needed this get away until we reached my parents house. My Mom was astonished at how happy the kids were just to have toys to play with! I didn't realize how worn out we were by the past 6 months of commotion, and constant change.


We asked the kids what they wanted to do while we were there. The list consisted of going to the beach, playing at the park across from my parents, and playing with their cousins. And that's just what we did!!

Jason was a lifesaver, and spent quite some time contacting people to inform them of our change in address. Our short time being homeless really wasn't a bad experience :) ... Not that I would recommend it, of course!!














We came back to our new house ready to unpack, and tackle that storage unit! The kids thought it was Christmas in August as they got back their treasured belongings that they hadn't seen in months!

We also came back and had to register kids for school, gather school supplies, get Makayla's things to start at North Middle School, try to coordinate getting our phone and internet, have our first dinner guests (the missionaries), get Jared's shots for kindergarten, have Jared's assessment, and get ready to play more, this time with Jason's Mom and Dad...so we still have LOTS of projects to do before we're totally settled in to our new place...for some reason it takes me a LONG time before I'm feeling totally settled. In fact, I think it took me almost 7 years before I felt settled into our last home. I'll just have to post about our progress...I chuckle when I think about a facebook post of one of my high school friends, who said something like, "Sometimes I'm so far behind, I'm ahead" ! Definitely how I'm feeling these days!!