Nayeli's Dream House

For our entire married life we have lived in a two bedroom, one bathroom, single story apartment. Consequentially, this has become Nayeli's norm and it's been evidenced by her amazement when we go to other people's houses.

For example, if we are visiting another home it isn't uncommon for her to come to me and say with amazement, "Mom, this house has a garage!" or "Mom, this house has stairs!". My favorite though was when we visited a friend and she told me with wide eyes and excitement, "Mom, this house has two bathrooms!"

From these statements Ben and I have been able to formulate the qualifications for Nayeli's dream home:

-2 bathrooms
-Stairs
-A garage

Picky girl, huh? The beautiful thing is that the house we are buying has all these qualifications and more such as an entry closet, two family rooms, three bedrooms, a crawl space, a backyard, and a pantry. Needless to say that we are all pretty excited about the house and we feel really really blessed. Dream house found.

Adventures at Table Rock

Amid the bustle of moving preparations and house purchasing, we have been making an effort to get out and enjoy our last days in Oregon. We have LOVED the beautiful nature we've been able to explore while here. In fact, Ben and I were recently reflecting on how little we know of downtown Portland, but how much we know of the surrounding wilderness and outdoor recreation. In fact, we both agree that going into the city stresses us out and we dislike it. Although there are fun things about Portland, we don't like the crowds, the inevitable traffic, or the difficulty parking. An evaluation of how we have spent our time while living here definitely shows that we are country mice, not urbanites.

On one of our recent outings, we took advantage of a rare sunny day to hike in the Molalla wilderness on a trail called Table Rock. Ben had done the entire eight mile trail before, but our objective this specific day was only to get outside, hike a bit, and build a campfire ("and cook s'mores"- Nayeli's request). Because so much of the land in our area is privately owned for farming, one must drive to public land to make a campfire. In this case, we had to go out an hour and twenty minutes, but it was definitely worth it.

Ben took the challenge of building a fire very seriously:

He splintered the wood before we began to hike.

Nayeli is just starting to get too big to carry, so we tried her out walking on this hike. We hadn't been on the trail more than two minutes before she was saying, "I'm tired. Carry me mama". We just had to keep distracting her with treasure hunts and such so she didn't realize that she was hiking. 

Oregon forests are just stunning 

We hiked up until snow covered the trail and made it difficult to continue. By then we were ready for lunch and a campfire, so we found a clearing and went to business.

Ben has commented how difficult it is to make a fire here since all the wood is so wet. I think he felt his manliness was in jeopardy if he didn't get the fire started. 

Teddy helping Ben blow 

 We have fire!

We ate lunch and cooked s'mores over our campfire, then cleaned up and hiked back down. It was a fun little adventure with our family, and we had a great time. 

What a Rollercoaster of Weeks!

The past few weeks have been CRAZY! Here's a summary:

Monday, Feb. 1: Ben found out that he was accepted into the full-time MBA program at the University of Utah. Not only was he accepted, but he earned a resident tuition scholarship as well as $20,000 additional scholarships. I was SO proud of him and we were SO excited! The kids and I made him a sign, bought balloons, and drank Martinelli's to celebrate. We planned to take out student loans, move into student housing in August, and do school full-time for two years.

Wednesday, Feb. 3: Ben was offered a job by his former employer, Blade HQ, to come back and be their marketing manager. The position is a huge promotion for him and after some salary negotiation (which Ben rocked and I was so proud of him for), we felt like we had two great options in front of us.

Celebrating Ben's acceptance!

We spent that weekend thinking, deliberating, and praying like crazy. By Sunday night we both felt like the right decision was to take the position at Blade HQ and do the Professional MBA (night program) at the UofU next year- once we can get residency tuition.

Monday, Feb. 8: Ben accepted the position at Blade HQ. Our thoughts then naturally turned to the question of where we would live... and we realized that we could buy a house! Woo hoo! A dream that we had had for years was one step closer to being a reality. I began to furiously look at houses, but found very little on the market that was within our price range. Many of the houses were old and needed a lot of work. It really wasn't too promising. I spoke with two realtors that told me that the good houses in that price point were going in a matter of days. Being so far away, I felt so out of control. It began to stress me out to the max, in an almost unhealthy way.

Wednesday, Feb. 10: Ben sat me down and told me that he couldn't live with me so stressed (he was totally justified in this, by the way) and so we agreed not to buy a house until we were in Utah. We decided to move into my parents basement until we could find a house. In fact, Ben quoted the scripture to me, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10) which I really needed to hear and has since become my mantra.

Thursday, Feb. 11: A boy I attended high school with posted on Facebook that he and his wife were selling their house in American Fork, just a mile from Ben's work. It had just gone on the market that day. It was adorable, in a great location, and within our price range. I completely forgot Ben's and my agreement from the night before and called my sister Laura to ask if she could look at the house the next day.

Friday, Feb. 12: Laura went to see two houses for me in the morning. The first wasn't great but the second, my friend's, she loved. She called me as she walked in and talked me through it aka "Here's the kitchen... oooh it's got a nice sized pantry..." By the end of the conversation, we were both sold on the house. I called the realtor and told him that I'd need to talk to Ben before we put an offer in, thinking Ben would need time to think about it, but when I called to tell him about it at lunch, he was all for it. So we put an offer in a bit below asking price and waited.

Saturday, Feb. 13: My brother Mark came into town to watch a basketball tournament my niece Makayla was playing in, so we went to watch her play in a game. All I could think about was the house. Would they take the offer? Wouldn't they? By that night we had found that there was another offer and that there was a possibility of a bidding war. To make a long story short, Ben and I made a final offer that night but I went to sleep tossing and turning. I wanted the house so badly, but I didn't want to pay too much for it. It was a long night.

Sunday, Feb. 14: Valentine's Day, but that was the last thing on my mind because I was a tormented soul. I knew that the final offer that Ben and I had made on the house wasn't strong enough, but I didn't know how to increase it without getting into a bidding war. My dad happened to call and offered a solution we hadn't thought of- offer to pay full price for the house and pay closing costs. It made perfect sense and didn't increase our overall cost too much. So I texted my realtor, apologized profusely for making him work on Sunday, and asked if he could submit one last offer from us. After that I felt peace and knew it was in the Lord's hands.

Monday, Feb. 15: We found out our offer had been accepted!!!! I cried I was so excited and even Ben was thrilled. Honestly, the Lord dropped that house in our laps. We were so lucky to get it, really we were.

We also realize that the sale can still fall through, but as of now let's get excited because, we're under contract to buy a house!!! We look forward to having a yard, planting a garden, painting walls, building shelves, and all that stuff that home owners do. Yes, I know it will be a lot of work but it's work that we are excited about and looking forward to.

Now we are in the midst of moving tasks such as packing, scheduling moving trucks, collecting boxes, as well as house items like home inspections, financing, and appraisals. Among the day to day work though, we can't help but marvel that our dreams seem to be coming true in ways we couldn't have forseen. Our goal for so long was to go back to school and now we have other amazing options without having to throw school completely to the side. We will have less debt, a better place to live, and a great professional stepping stone for Ben in the meantime. The Lord is so creative and wonderful- it seems he's given us our cake and is going to let us eat it too. Our cup runneth over.

My 31st Birthday

I am writing this over a month late because it has been a crazy crazy month, but I'll write all about it in the next post. In the meantime I need to tell about my 31st birthday and how great it was.

For the past three consecutive years, Ben has been gone on my birthday due to SHOT show, a trade show he attends in Las Vegas. This year, however, he was able to leave as late as possible, meaning he was home for half of my actual birthday on Sunday and flew out in the afternoon. For that reason, we spent most of Saturday celebrating my birthday. In fact, he had his interview at the University of Utah on Friday, flew home early Saturday, spent the afternoon crashed on the couch (can you blame him?), and then we went out on a date that night. We hired a babysitter and went to a delicious Italian restaurant in Lake Oswego, then came home to have ice cream and blow out candles. Well a candle, to be specific. I'm not much of a cake person, so it was the perfect dessert.

On Sunday morning Ben made a delicious crepe breakfast (my favorite), I opened gifts, and then we got ready for church.

My handsome, dapper boys 

These kiddos are the cutest, aren't they?

Ben came to part of church with us, then left to catch his plane. After service the kids and I stayed busy by taking selfies... of course. 

That night my wonderful friend Dennine invited us over for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook on my birthday. It was fun to be together and was the perfect end to my night. Honestly, it was a fun day and we celebrated it in a great way. Really, this getting older thing isn't bad at all- I don't know what everyone is always complaining about ;)

Zumba

I have always wanted to try a zumba exercise class, and I mentioned so to Ben once. Then recently Ben asked if I would like to take a zumba class offered at the local community center. I said of course. So for my birthday Ben bought me a pass to an eight week class every Wednesday, and since the class is at 5pm, Ben also comes home from work early and cooks dinner. It has been the best birthday present I could have asked for to be able to get out one night a week, as well as not have to stress dinner.

The class itself has been really fun. The instructor is spunky and always has a smile on her face. We live in an area with a lot of seniors, so out of 20 or so in the class I am the youngest under 50. I'm basically dancing zumba with my mom and I love it. I love being in situations where I can make friends that I wouldn't make otherwise, and I have. You can't dance with others and not bond.

I have two more weeks of my class and I have loved how it makes me feel. Moving my body to music feeds my soul and makes me feel young. Props to Ben for winning the birthday lottery this year. I won't ever forget it.