home owners

yes, that's right.  We bought our first home!!!  I wanted to wait and write about it after everything was final.  We closed last Monday and move next week.  finally!  and the best part is, it's only 2 doors down from our current home we are renting.  So it should be an easy move and we get to stay in our awesome neighborhood/schools and ward.  Monday night, when they brought over the keys, we walked through the empty house with the kids, prioritizing rooms to paint etc.  We had 2 lovely bouquets of flowers in the kitchen as a surprise.  One from our realtor and the other from the previous owners, wishing us many happy memories to come.

I thought it would be fun to look back on all the places we've lived since we got married.  In January, 1999, we got married and  moved into Grandview apartments, in Provo Utah.  which actually weren't so grand.  no dishwasher or washer/dryer.  and it was really old and not so nice.

We lived here for 2 1/2 years while we both finished up at BYU.  It was a happy time for us--Emily was born here.  and we had great neighbors, Trent and Melissa, who were newlyweds in our ward and lots of fun.  They loved to come over and hold/babysit Emily.   I felt fortunate to have wonderful neighbors, because a different friend, who lived on the other side of the building, occasionally had to call 911 when her next door neighbor would start beating his wife.  really sad.  One time, we came back from Thanksgiving and discovered that a pipe had frozen and then burst flooding our entire apartment.  The maintenance guys had to come in while were were gone and empty everything out and rip out the carpets.

In June 2001, Ryan graduated and we took our first job in San Jose, California!!  This was during the boom when it was almost impossible to find an apartment.  We took the first thing we could find.  a small 2 bedroom apartment, 900 square feet and we were paying $1800 a month.

 I remember our neighbor, a young single guy from Turkey, would have loud parties all night long that would keep us up.   The ward was an older ward with no young moms and few kids.  It was a lonely time for me.  I was only 23.  We were always on the lookout for a cheaper/better apartment.  and six months later, (I was 7 months pregnant with Trent) we moved to Ellmar Oaks apartments.   I had a friend from Twin Falls, Becky Dodds Brower, who lived  close by and said her ward was the most amazing ward you'd ever see and it was full of young families.  horay!    and everything she said was true!!  We lived here for 5 years and loved every minute of it.  We met our best friends, the Klippel family and many, many other wonderful friends.

We swam almost every day about 5 months out of the year.  That's why Emily is such a good swimmer and on swim team, and my other 2 kids are not that great of swimmers.  They were too young to remember.

Both Trent and Jake were born here.  For the last 6 months, we had 3 kids in our 2 bedroom apartment!   Even though we loved California, we knew we'd never be able to afford a home and Ryan wanted a change at work.  so we accepted an international assignment in Tokyo.   That was one of the hardest decisions to make and SO hard to say goodbye to our wonderful ward and dear friends.  Emily cried and cried when we moved.

But Tokyo was a great experience!  We moved in January, 2007.  We lived right in Tokyo, in Shibuya.  spent 4 years in an apartment... and then our last 6 months in a house.  This is where we lived when the earthquake hit.

In June, 2011, we moved to Seattle!  Hope to stay in this house for quite a while!!  So now you'll understand if I don't post for a while...we're busy packing.  and painting!!