Summer of Changes - Part 1

So much has happened since my last post back in May!

Nikki graduated high school and Alice graduated from preschool!

We finished getting our house ready for sale in June and got it on the market on June 24th. 

Garrett playing the piano one last time before we gave it away. We had it outside ready for pick up. I had to show this picture. How often do you play the piano outside your house!?

Moving our stuff to the rental on the last day of June.

Our 20th wedding anniversary was on the 22nd and since the realtor needed to take pictures of our house that day and have our family out of the way we decided to celebrate our anniversary by taking the kids to Roaring Springs. Charlotte had a free pass to use from school anyway. Well, the market pretty much slowed to a stop by the time we got our house listed and even though we were getting saves and looks online we did not get any showings for at least the first couple of weeks. Our house was for sale for about a week before we were able to move out into a rental right next door to my in laws. We figured things might pick up on showings after we moved out but nope. Our price was lower than most that compared to ours but the fact that the interest rates just went up before we listed did not help at all. We did not get any people come to the open house either, even after lowering our price (after only being on the market for about 2 weeks). 

Right after we lowered our price the very next day our competitors lowered their prices again! We decided to wait about a week and see how the open house would go. Nobody came to that and so we met with Troy again on July 13th. With CBH Homes being so competitive on dropping their prices we wanted to be aggressive so we could get our home sold as soon as possible. We had a prayer together and made the decision to make a huge drop in our price. Our starting price was $459,900. Our first price drop was to $448,000. Our huge price drop was to $405,000. It wasn't until that last big price drop that we finally started getting showings. 

Meanwhile, Nikki was getting ready to move to Washington to go to art school at Northwest College of Art & Design. Curtis, Garrett and I traveled with Nikki the weekend of July 15th (girls stayed with Gaya and Jack stayed with a friend from our old ward). Curtis had the crazy idea to leave Friday night and travel at night time to beat the heat. Ugh, I was NOT happy but I went along with it. It wasn't too bad. We did stop at a rest area once to sleep for a few hours. Another big reason to travel at night was so that we could drop Nikki off earlier and have more time to travel back to Richland so that we could look around and stay the night there before heading home on Sunday. We helped Nikki unload her stuff and pick up a bunk bed before driving into town to find the college and eat some lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory. We took her back to the apartment (she's rooming with 3 other people) and said our good byes. It was my first visit to both Tacoma and Tri Cities. While Tacoma was cooler, greener and wetter it was still really dirty (trash everywhere) especially in downtown where the college is located. Tri Cities (Richland, Kennewick and Pasco) is in a desert climate just like the Boise area so it was hotter, drier but it was a lot cleaner. It's also a lot flatter! There was a lot of open sky and only small hills compared to our big mountains back home. I was not excited at first but the more we drove around the more I liked it.  I love that we'll be close to rivers at least.

I rode with Nikki in her car and the boys were in the truck.

It was very beautiful over there.

Waiting at the restaurant, The Old Spaghetti Factory.

The temple in Richland.

River view from our hotel.

I had to laugh because of this sign. Skunks? Really? I'm not sure I like that! We didn't see any though.

Walking around on the Pasco side of the river. It has a nice greenbelt.

We travelled back home on Sunday but we had to stop at the Costco in Kennewick to gas up and get some water and snacks for the ride home and I was so surprised to see Ashlee Poulsen working at Costco! She's the younger sister of my friend Brittanie Poulsen, who I have known since I was little. Now there are at least 3 people I know that live in Tri Cities! Little tender mercies.

The girls also did swim lessons in July. It was the first time for Alice and 2nd time for Charlotte but Charlotte hadn't done it since before Covid I think so we had to get swim evaluations for both. They both passed their classes and loved it. Alice was a little shy and timid at first but got more comfortable each day. They both love to swim. In fact, swimming was the first activity they did in the new ward with the activity day girls. (I had brought Alice along since I got in the pool too.)

Alice was in Preschool 2 level.

Charlotte was in Level 2.

On the last day they had some fun. I can't believe Alice actually jumped off the diving board! (the instructor was in the pool to catch her)

Charlotte was so excited to go in the deepest pool and do the diving board.

And the rope swing!

Well, after we got back from our trip to Washington we received an official offer on the house on the 19th of July for the amount we had listed! They went and saw the house multiple times and fell in love with it, especially the play house. We learned that he is a veteran and that together they have 3 young kids with another on the way. They did want us to pay closing costs though which is around $10,000 so we came up with the idea to add it to our selling price. They agreed so we marked the price up to $415,000. Afterwards they had an inspection and appraisal done, which went very well. We didn't need to fix anything else up after inspection and the appraisal came back sooner than expected, which was while we were on vacation to the Oregon coast!  To skip ahead a little, we did end up closing the sale of our house this week and we officially no longer own the home on Aspen Grove St. Everything is working out so this must be what the Lord has planned for us. I'm going to split this post into two since there's a lot. Next will be about the Oregon Coast trip and the start of the new school year!