Crazy Few Weeks!

Alright so if you haven't figured it out - it's been a crazy couple of weeks! I finally found my camera cable, so over the next few days (hopefully!) I will be updating this with all of our Arizona fun times. This post, however, is a long one with pictures chronicling (well, had I taken better pictures it would anyway!) our move...ish. It's just a bunch of randomness from the last month really. :) Okay, here we go!

This was just cute. Taken about 2 weeks before we moved. :)

1 Week Prior to Moving - Sophia and I go to visit my family and see some friends before the big move. Sophia helped me pack. :)

Ha ha, love this face!

And she even brought some reading material!

One last run around Grandma Hunter's yard before heading off!

But now it's time to go!

We got to see my baby brother play in his last band concert! He is so amazing - he did a solo piece that was insane! He graduated this year, but we were already in AZ so I didn't get to see him walk. Weird to think that I was 7 when he was born!

We got to visit with a few friends while we were in Cache Valley, but the only one I got pictures of was Mattie's little boy, Roman! He is so stinking cute, I just love this little guy! (And you'd never know he was 8 months younger than Sophia! The kid is huge!)

They had fun playing and eating pizza though. :)

Just look at that face!!!! Couldn't you just die??? Love his cheeks!

I think he was done with me taking his picture though. :)

So then we moved - of course, I didn't get any pictures of that day, (it was a little hectic!) but you can read all about our move in an earlier post (I think...I'll have to check to make sure). Once we were there we spent 2 weeks in a tiny little hotel room, and Sophie was sick of it! So one day we found a park to go play at so Jon could study in peace and quiet. :)

At first, all Sophie wanted to do was run acrossed this bridge over and over again...

Which she loved doing and clapped after every passover.

Then she started finding the other toys to play on...

So she climbed and ran, until a little boy and his parents came to play and she saw him going down slides and stuff, then she got more daring. (Little boy not pictured because that would be creepy of me to take some random kids pictures at a playground)

She went down the little tube slide and saw how much fun it was, but it took a little coaxing.

In the end she liked it though...

Until she realized that the bottom was pretty high off the ground, that she got a little nervous again.

Then we had to try the small straight slide - it was a lot faster, but lots of fun!

Then the REALLY exciting one - the big swirly slide! This was by FAR her favorite!

And she went down it again, and again, and again!

Then she went back to the little slide when her little friend left. :)

This is a picture of my "mountain"...yeah, kind of a downgrade. :-\

FINALLY we were able to close on our house and get out of that tiny hotel room! Hooray! Jon had some friends from school come and help us, and Sophie was so excited to just be going somewhere!

Heading out to the house!

Ain't she cute? :)

Once we got the truck unloaded, Jon's friends left and we were left to sit and enjoy the house for a moment...

They are so cute together. :)

Oh, and I got confused on which Sunday we were on, and thought that Father's day was the day after we moved in (it was actually a week later!) so Sophie and I got daddy a card and an icecream drumstick thing. :)

Sophie helped decorate the right side. :)

Her cute hand. (sigh)

Then relaxation time was over, and it was time to get to work! I'll have full before and after pictures later, but here's some of the "in-between" shots I got. :)

Chiseling up the tile wasn't too bad, it was the stuff under the tile that was the killer!

Although the saltillo tile came up in tiny chunks, it at least didn't leave the cement glue stuff underneath!

Me just chiseling away! (I know, I look fantastic when I'm doing construction!) O_o

Sophie had to stay upstairs most of the time, but she managed to stay happy. :)

Out tile we chose - I like it, and it was a really good deal! (Benefit of buying wholesale!)

Sophie's first Swiss Roll - this thing was like crack to her!

Then we got the pool filled and decided to give it a try! Jon went and skimmed it really good first...

Sophie was so excited to swim!

She had such a blast!

Ugh, more work now. To save money we layed our own tile, but our countertop guy was so nice and let us use his saw so we wouldn't have to rent one! So Jon showed me how to do it and here I am sawing away!

It was much easier than I thought it would be!

Now after all of this excitement, I think we're all ready for a break!

Change is Good!

Alright, can I just say how much I LOVE my neighborhood? Seriously, I love it! I was so nervous when we were getting ready to move down here that we would end up in a place where I would never want to leave my house (okay okay, I never really left my house before, but still!) but when we started looking at homes in this area I fell in love with it! Mostly I liked that there were some very tiny "mountains" (I call them this because I miss my mountains) that separated this area from the rest of Glendale/Phoenix, but it's still super close so I can get everything I need. Plus, the main road on the northern part of the area is called Happy Valley Road - what's not to love about that??? They have a great little shopping center, a golf course, a HUGE water park, and as an added bonus (for me anyway) they are building the Phoenix temple up here too! It's quaint but efficient, and I love it!

Okay sorry, back to the point. The first day we moved in (last Saturday, June 11) we got all of our crap in the garage and set up a bed for Sophie to nap and that still somehow took all day. By night Sophie was tired, cranky, and had been in the sun for way too long, so I decided to take her for a walk. Now this is NOT something I would normally do without knowing the neighborhood - in fact in my first house, even though I loved my neighbors, I didn't really talk to anyone or go walking around at all for months/years after moving in. So this was big for me, but I was instantly rewarded. I was able to see all of the cute houses around me, and every single person who drove by me waved and smiled. Not just the little, "oh crap I made eye contact, quick do something!" type of wave, but genuine friendly waves. And one person was coming back from getting their mail or something (and this was 2 streets down) and saw me and asked if I just moved in. When I told him yes, we just got there that morning, he was actually excited and went on to tell me how he'd been living there for 20 years and how much he loved the area and how great it was for raising kids and how much I would love it here. Then he shook my hand and told me to let him know if we needed anything at all. At first I thought - wow, that guy is really nice! But I've learned that EVERYONE here is that nice! I've met about 6 other neighbors with the same results! Shoot, I had a nice conversation with the drive-thru kid at Burger King! And every one of these encounters I was dirty, sweaty, probably didn't have much makeup (if any!) on and several occasions was covered in dust and bits of tile from working all day, so it's not just people being nice to a cute girl or anything like that.

We've just been so blessed in this whole move. Other than our frustrations with the title company when we were buying the house, everything has just been working out so smoothly and we're settling in so nice, it's better than I hoped for! I think that Heavenly Father definitely helped us get to where we needed to be. :)

Welcome to My New Home!!!

FINALLY we're in!!! Oh can I tell you what a relief it was to finally be able to close on this house? It's been stressful. So here's the story:

We left for Arizona on May 30 (Monday) after Jon was off of work. We had our suitcases and essentials packed in the car, and the rest of our stuff in Jon's parent's garage waiting to be loaded and packed down to us later in the week. (Sidenote: My inlaws are awesome for doing that for us!) So we drive all Monday afternoon and half of the night and arrive at our hotel at about 2:30 AM. The next day we planned on seeing the house and then closing later in the day. Well, we saw the house, but suddenly they are waiting on something from HUD to be able to close. No worries, we told them we needed to close by June 3, so we have time. Then Wednesday comes, and we don't close. But we are assured that Thursday will be the day. Thursday comes...doesn't happen. By this time, Jon's parents are half way to Arizona with a trailer full of our stuff and no where to put it. We're told we'll sign on Friday and have the keys Monday now. So Friday comes, and we still can't sign. Jon's parents get here and we have to rent a storage unit. We go out to dinner, have a good time, and then since we can't unpack or move or anything, Jon's parent's really don't have anything to do so they head back to Utah. But on the bright side, my real estate agent, Kim, has finally gotten some answers as to what we're waiting for and knows who to talk to Monday. Now we wait...all weekend. Monday comes, Kim is able to get the document they're waiting on (Yay!) and sends it in, confirms that it's been received and tells us that we should be able to sign on Tuesday and have the keys by Wednesday. Monday is also Jon's first day of school, which goes well. Tuesday comes, we're waiting for the Title company to call us - they don't. We call them around noon and ask when we can sign, but they are now doing a pre-audit that they say can take 48-72 hours (which according to Kim is bullcrap, it only takes an hour or two tops). Then at 7:30 we get a notice that the preaudit is complete and we're good to go. Now we're happy, but have looked at several apartments by now because we're both sure that something will happen and we won't get this house. Wednesday comes, and we wait for them to call to schedule the signing. They don't, so we call them around noon and they're too busy and booked for the day. Now we're really getting mad because it's been over a week since we were supposed to sign and we're stuck in a tiny hotel room with a baby. But, they tell us they can get us in first thing in the morning - actually scheduling it before they normally start. This is good, we're happy, but still have several apartments lined up just in case. Thursday morning we go in and FINALLY sign! Hooray! Now we just have to wait for funding. Our mortgage guy is awesome and we're able to get funded on Friday, but not before getting another call from title agency saying that they forgot a page that we needed to sign. Really? Yeah, annoying. So we sign, we know we're funded, but now we're waiting for the house to be recorded (put on the county records). And finally at 5:00pm on Friday June 10th, we have the keys to our house! Something that should have been completed by June 2 or 3 has finally happened! Of course by now it's late and Jon has homework and it's short notice to have his school friends help us move in, so we decide to move in the next day.

It was quite a stressful time, but I'm so glad that we finally got our house! Now for the fun part - fixing it up! It was a HUD home, so it was pretty beat up, but it will be really cute when it's finished! Anyway, I can't find the cord to put on any updated pictures, but here are some of the before shots so you have an idea of what we're working with! :)

Welcome!

Desert landscaping (aka: rocks)

Walk in the door to the Living Room / Dining Room area (yes, there is no flooring there yet) with the oh so "lovely" saltillo tile in the entryway, hallway and stairs. (We ripped out all but the stairs, just FYI)


From the dining room you can see the kitchen with the makeshift breakfast bar (ripping that out and repairing the wall) and a view into the Family Room. Oh, and there is no countertop over by the stove, just a piece of plywood.


Family Room, complete with fireplace and surround sound. Also has a door to the backyard to the right and the laundry room, garage and bathroom to the left.


View of the kitchen from the Family Room. I should mention that if you stand in the family room a little further back, you can see that the white tile in the kitchen is different than the white tile in the Family Room and you can also see that red saltillo tile in the hallway/entry way. So yes, 3 different types of tile all within eyeshot. Oh, and see where they were building those shelves over there? Yeah, that's where the fridge goes. :-\ We ripped that out. People are weird sometimes...


This I did like though. Just needs to be cleaned, but it works great! :)


Half Bath downstairs - they kept a dog in here before (HUD boarded it up to keep pests out) so it needs to be cleaned up, but not bad. And yes, that door leads outside to the side yard - odd I know.


Now to go upstairs! (Saltillo tile on the stairs - I'm not a fan, but stairs are freaking expensive to recarpet!)

This one will actually be Sophie's room - the green is much better in person, and it goes cute with her pink stuff and has a deeper closet that fits her toybox nicely. :)

This monstrosity is where Jon and I have set up shop for now until our carpet is installed (you'll see the master in a minute) The previous owners spray painted these on there - talented? Yes. Ugly? Definitely. Going to be painted over? Oh yeah!

More of the horrible Pooh theme...

And here's the Master Bedroom. Good size, just needs carpet and paint (much like the rest of the house).

Master Bathroom - I just love split sinks. :)

Okay, our backyard used to have grass, but the house has been vacant for over a year, so it's all dead. But we do have a huge back porch with ceiling fans and a bar that the previous owners were building. We haven't decided if we want to finish it or not, but it might be fun to have. :)

Another shot of the yard with a shot of our pool. :) It's actually a diving pool and is 10 feet deep on one end and 4 on the shallow end. Sophie isn't allowed outside at all without a leash! O_o

Anyway, that's our house! As you can see there is a LOT to do, but we've already done a lot and once I can find my camera cable I'll post our progress. And shoot, for $80,500 I can handle a little bit of cleaning and painting! :)