Moving Day

family pic

Bethany helping us vacuum

helping with the rug

hard to finish packing with two trouble makers on the loose :)

The OTHER big announcment

So, I alluded to many changes in our life right now. Adding another member to our family is certainly life changing, and yet we have so many other things to think about too.

This blog started with a lot of posts about our cabin. We bought lakeshore property in 2004 because I have so many memories going to my grandparents cabin on Lake Florida growing up in the Kerkhoven area. Dan and I both thought it would be a fun thing to invest in and possibly build a cabin there someday. Well, in January 2008 our dream came true and our cabin was finished after a year of building permits, sub-contractor issues, and plenty of elbow grease each and every weekend we went out there. I love the cabin. I love the distance from our home (just 1 hr door-to-door), the lakeshore (all 180 feet of it on our double-lot), the view from all the huge windows, and the memories.

As our family has grown, we've talked about moving to a bigger home, or if it works to live in our 1,850 sq feet twinhome during the week and spending Friday evening through Sunday morning at the cabin. We have almost everything we need at the cabin but it still is a process to pack up some fresh food, maybe our computers and now Bethany's things each weekend, and also to keep both places clean. But, to me it is a small price to pay for being able to truly relax each weekend... because hey, I left our daily life at home.

Because the housing market has been down there are a lot of lakeshore properties closer to Minneapolis that have drastically come down in price. Before we thought we'd never be able to get onto Lake Minnetonka but now it seems like there are a few places we could see ourselves living in year-round.

So, this leads to our other big announcement. We had both the cabin and our twin-home on the market last summer and fall with limited interest. It wasn't fun showing our house with a toddler, so we took it off over the holidays and then put the cabin back on in February. We had a lot of interest right away with some quick offers but nothing realistic. Then, a couple weeks ago we got a call that we had a showing at the cabin setup for a Wednesday morning. Our real estate agent had lots of dialog with the other agent the night before and by Wednesday afternoon we had a list of questions from the potential buyers asking for clarification on some things since there was so much snow and the lake was still frozen over. We responded and Thursday got an offer. It wasn't close at all so we had our agent give them our final number to take it or leave it Friday morning. At noon we got a congratulatory email that we had a deal. I wanted to be sure we made it through the house inspection because it was all happening so fast and I couldn't believe it went that quickly or easily. The inspection was perfect and they are anxious to close on April 6th. It is a very quick timeline so we've been rushing to get packed and ready to move the weekend of the 2nd. My sister came to help last weekend and Dan's dad is coming this weekend which is good so I don't wallow in my pity-party about losing the cabin. Yes, I'm excited about the possibility of finding a great place to move to, but it is bitter sweet. We put our lives into the cabin over the last few years so I will always miss it.

We've gone house hunting once with no clear answer, so we'll try again. No immediate rush since we can stay at our house until we find something, but the clock is ticking for baby #2 and I doubt it would be fun to move 8 or 9 months pregnant so my goal is by June.

I need to trust God during this whole process as it has been a whirlwind so far. I've been traveling a lot and so my mind is going a lot of different directions. Moving isn't "fun" but pray that we'll find a perfect place that has what we're looking for: good view/lakeshore, decent distance to work, and big enough for our growing family. Dan has done so much research so I'm also learning to trust his instincts to find something that has both of our goals in mind.

Maybe we'll find something just like the cabin but on Lake Minnetonka :)

Labor Day Weekend!

What a BEAUTIFUL weekend it was! It was perfect outside and we had so much fun at the lake! Dan and I went out on Friday night after the Vikings pre-season game and went kayaking on Saturday a.m. The water was like glass and we paddled effortlessly through the next two lakes. Tom and Becky and Adelyn came over that afternoon and we had fun on the boat for a few hours. Adelyn screamed as the wind blew in her face - she loved it! Allison and Jeremy came for dinner and then that night everyone had a little co-ed baby shower for us. We played the "traits" game, a matching baby game, and then we bobbed for pacifiers and decorated onesies. It was so much fun! The guys really got into the competition when bobbing for pacifiers, and were very creative on the onsies too! My favorites were Tom's: Made in Vegas, and Allison's: Party. My crib. 3a.m. BYOB (bring your own bottle). I had fun making mine - I smeared brown paint all over the bottom of my onesie and wrote Little Pooper over the top of it :)

Allison had been having her pre-term contractions again so they left in the middle of the night to go home.. but she was feeling better after resting on Sunday. Her baby is due 3 weeks after me so hopefully she can hang on a few more weeks and at least get to 30. Sunday Kevin came out to try out the boat and fish with Dan and Tom while Becky and I chatted during Adelyn's naps. We went tubing and I got banned from trying to ski :( Oh well, at least I got to go faster than normal on the tube! Dan was driving so he just made sure I didn't fly off.

Yesterday Dan and I went kayaking again in the morning and then relaxed on the boat. I couldn't believe we had such great weather all weekend. I wanted to package it up and six months from now trade it in for one of the cold snowy days!

I'll post pictures soon.... Thank you Belisles and Houles for the great baby shower! It was so much fun - we love you guys!

Cold!

Dan and I picked up our new furniture on Friday that he got me for Christmas and we brought it out to the lake. It was soooo cold outside, we both vowed never to move anything out to the lake in the winter again! But, after we moved the other furniture to the basement and the new ones inside it was worth it. On Saturday we tried out our snowshoes for the first time and hiked along the dam through the fresh snow. Beautiful! Too bad I forgot my camera to capture the scenery.

Picture of the new loveseat, chair and some of my Christmas decorations.
Finally, we have furniture in the basement!

I'm now off of work until January 5th, so I'm enjoying time at home getting some projects done that never seem to get accomplished during the work week. Then we are off to my aunt and uncle's in Apple Valley on Christmas Eve to celebrate with the extended family on my side. We are at my parents on Christmas and then we might spend some time at the lake next weekend. Dan's parents haven't moved yet, but hopefully that will happen sometime this week too.

Dan has a big decision to make at work that has to happen by January 5th. Best Buy is offering voluntary separation to their corporate employees, which means Dan could leave mid-February and get paid until next Thanksgiving. If he finds another job during that time he'd still get the pay from Best Buy and from his new job, so we think he might take the deal. We will be praying he finds a job quickly!

If I don't get back on here before Thursday, Merry Christmas everyone!

Cabin Progress

So, we haven't posted about the cabin lately but there is progress! Over Christmas Dan and I finally agreed that things were not going as well as they should with our current builder. We would go out on the weekends to find that little to nothing had been done, and finally decided to give up. We drafted an email to our builder with a new timeline, but this time included penalties if he didn't make each week's deadline. It worked! First, he agreed to our new timeline in our email :) and then the next day realized there was no way he was going to be able to make the deadlines. But, since he had already agreed to it he needed to come back to us with a new proposal. He asked if we would let his friend, who did our exterior (and did a great job), finish the cabin for us and he would bow out. This was great news because his friend actually does work during the week! We met him at the lake last Saturday and he agreed to our timeline and has guys working out there this week. It is such an answer to prayer to finally see the finish line and have our first builder out of the picture. It is even better that we may be able to close on our house loan within the 60 day rate lock so we won't have any penalties. Even if we do need to move the closing date out to mid-February to give us more time it still won't be too bad if we have to pay those fees. God is so faithful!

Christmas turned from being a time of uncertainty to a time of celebration that we will be done with the cabin soon!

The next couple of weeks will be tough trying to coordinate all of the finishing work, inspections, appraisals, etc. but we are feeling SO much better about everything. Even today God showed us again that He is in control when we had an issue with our carpet. We got this great deal at Home Depot where they install as many rooms in your house as you want for only $199. It was to take 2-3 weeks after you order it before installation so we placed the order on 12/30 so even if it pushed a little past 3 weeks we'd have time before closing. I got a confirmation call on Monday saying they were expecting it in next week and they'd call to schedule the installation. Well, today I got another call saying they were OUT of our carpet and needed to make more before they could send it - expected install date 5 weeks out. Yikes!! That would be after our closing date and therefore more penalties. We weren't happy that we had been told 2-3 weeks max and then this happened, so as I was about to call and ask to talk to a mgr the lady called me back and said she had news. She kept trying the carpet company to see what else we could do and even though they kept saying nothing, she kept calling. Finally, they found another order of the same carpet that was on hold for someone else. The hold expired 20 minutes before, so they could ship it to us! (For those of you worried about the other people not getting their carpet, they would just get ours that will be made in 5 weeks if they still want it :) The lady said she wasn't expecting it to fit with our floor layout which would require extra seems, but when they measured it... it fit! It will be at the store next week and we can install it whenever we want before our closing. God is really good.

Anyway, long post but I wanted to give an update on the cabin and our wonderful story from today. I hope you are all feeling God's blessings on your life, and even if it doesn't feel like it right now, He is there and will never leave you.