Thank you to everyone who called and made sure we were doing alright. We've had quite the February and I can say that I'm extremely glad it's over. The sun is starting to shine again in our lives (figuratively and literally) and things are looking up.
First I'll explain why I needed a hiatus in the first place. With permission from my sister I'll give a short summary of the beginning of February. As many of you know, she was due with her second son just 2 weeks ahead of me. We were very excited about this since our last babies were born 2 weeks apart (along with one other niece). It's always fun to have cousins close in age.
At 22 weeks, E's water broke. She had a very emotional hospital stay over the next 5 days and delivered her beautiful baby boy February 2nd. They were able to give him a name and a blessing before he returned to his Heavenly Father and we were all privileged to attend a small service for him later that week before he was buried near his grandpa. It was an extremely hard time for all of us, but I dare say all of us received a growth in our testimonies during this hard trial. There was no doubt that God was very aware of all of us in our mourning, and we felt His spirit with us in abundance, most especially with my dear sister and her husband. We are all *extra* grateful for our knowledge of eternal families.
This is the original reason I stopped blogging for a while. There was so much to say and yet nothing to say. It came down to the fact that I was still dealing with my emotions and they were way too close to the surface to try to put them into words (especially for public viewing). So thank you for understanding. :)
In January Brent and I decided to refinance our house. The market was excellent for this and the interest rates were insanely low. So we put in all our paperwork and waited for the lowest-possible interest rate. We were using a sweet lady in our ward who is a loan officer. She called Brent a few times telling him the rates and every time he felt like he shouldn't "lock in" even though the rates were 4.75% a couple of times. He started to feel like maybe this wasn't the next step for us......he didn't know that I had been feeling the same way. We'd both started casually house-hunting on the internet without the other one knowing. Once we found out, we had a good laugh and decided to pray about it and go to the temple to see if this was really something we should pursue (since the obviously "wise" thing to do with our money would be to refinance). We both received overwhelming confirmation that it was time to move. We needed to sell our house. And within 3-4 days of this decision it was sold, without even putting it on the market. In that time we'd also submitted an offer on another house and had gone under contract with that house. This is the house we will most likely buy, but we've been trying to do our "due diligence" all month. We've run our realtor ragged. Part of the reason is that the "new" house is another fixer-upper. We've been searching diligently for a house that doesn't need a ton of work. We've found some great houses, but none have panned out for one reason or another. So it looks like Heavenly Father wants to put Brent's and my skills to work again. (Brent's the one with most of the skills, but I'm a GREAT go-fer!)
I know, I know.....we just did this all 3 years ago, right? Exactly.
And I'm pregnant again, right? Hey, apparently it's the thing to do when I'm pregnant. This will be the 3rd time. BUT it will be the first time we're not moving across the country, so that's nice. And I'm earlier in my pregnancy than with the others.
This was another reason for the blogging hiatus. Moving is quite stressful!
One more reason....Brent just got back from a 10-day trip to India last week. I was lucky to make it through those 10 days alive (and with my children alive)....there was no doing anything "extra" during that time. (Except running around with my realtor looking at more houses, of course, and putting an offer on a house by myself without Brent's signature next to mine on all those papers....you know, nothing big or stressful!) (That was one of the houses that didn't pan out, by the way.)
And during all this time, there was still the "regular" stuff to get to. How annoying is that? Have you ever noticed how the regular stuff doesn't seem to go away even when your life is turned upside-down? I find that terribly rude.
So I guess I'm officially back, but still under a bit of stress. We're closing on our current house the end of this month, and will hopefully have another house to move into at that time. ;)
And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics Brent took of the kids yesterday before church. He brought all the girls skirts/shirts that the little girls in India wear. He brought Roo a "treasure" box. He knows his kids well. :)
First I'll explain why I needed a hiatus in the first place. With permission from my sister I'll give a short summary of the beginning of February. As many of you know, she was due with her second son just 2 weeks ahead of me. We were very excited about this since our last babies were born 2 weeks apart (along with one other niece). It's always fun to have cousins close in age.
At 22 weeks, E's water broke. She had a very emotional hospital stay over the next 5 days and delivered her beautiful baby boy February 2nd. They were able to give him a name and a blessing before he returned to his Heavenly Father and we were all privileged to attend a small service for him later that week before he was buried near his grandpa. It was an extremely hard time for all of us, but I dare say all of us received a growth in our testimonies during this hard trial. There was no doubt that God was very aware of all of us in our mourning, and we felt His spirit with us in abundance, most especially with my dear sister and her husband. We are all *extra* grateful for our knowledge of eternal families.
This is the original reason I stopped blogging for a while. There was so much to say and yet nothing to say. It came down to the fact that I was still dealing with my emotions and they were way too close to the surface to try to put them into words (especially for public viewing). So thank you for understanding. :)
In January Brent and I decided to refinance our house. The market was excellent for this and the interest rates were insanely low. So we put in all our paperwork and waited for the lowest-possible interest rate. We were using a sweet lady in our ward who is a loan officer. She called Brent a few times telling him the rates and every time he felt like he shouldn't "lock in" even though the rates were 4.75% a couple of times. He started to feel like maybe this wasn't the next step for us......he didn't know that I had been feeling the same way. We'd both started casually house-hunting on the internet without the other one knowing. Once we found out, we had a good laugh and decided to pray about it and go to the temple to see if this was really something we should pursue (since the obviously "wise" thing to do with our money would be to refinance). We both received overwhelming confirmation that it was time to move. We needed to sell our house. And within 3-4 days of this decision it was sold, without even putting it on the market. In that time we'd also submitted an offer on another house and had gone under contract with that house. This is the house we will most likely buy, but we've been trying to do our "due diligence" all month. We've run our realtor ragged. Part of the reason is that the "new" house is another fixer-upper. We've been searching diligently for a house that doesn't need a ton of work. We've found some great houses, but none have panned out for one reason or another. So it looks like Heavenly Father wants to put Brent's and my skills to work again. (Brent's the one with most of the skills, but I'm a GREAT go-fer!)
I know, I know.....we just did this all 3 years ago, right? Exactly.
And I'm pregnant again, right? Hey, apparently it's the thing to do when I'm pregnant. This will be the 3rd time. BUT it will be the first time we're not moving across the country, so that's nice. And I'm earlier in my pregnancy than with the others.
This was another reason for the blogging hiatus. Moving is quite stressful!
One more reason....Brent just got back from a 10-day trip to India last week. I was lucky to make it through those 10 days alive (and with my children alive)....there was no doing anything "extra" during that time. (Except running around with my realtor looking at more houses, of course, and putting an offer on a house by myself without Brent's signature next to mine on all those papers....you know, nothing big or stressful!) (That was one of the houses that didn't pan out, by the way.)
And during all this time, there was still the "regular" stuff to get to. How annoying is that? Have you ever noticed how the regular stuff doesn't seem to go away even when your life is turned upside-down? I find that terribly rude.
So I guess I'm officially back, but still under a bit of stress. We're closing on our current house the end of this month, and will hopefully have another house to move into at that time. ;)
And now, for your viewing pleasure, here are some pics Brent took of the kids yesterday before church. He brought all the girls skirts/shirts that the little girls in India wear. He brought Roo a "treasure" box. He knows his kids well. :)
1 comment:
crazy, crazy... glad you're back!!
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