The last two months have been an absolute whirlwind! Moving is the worst. There is just no other way to put it. There are so many moving parts and it is just overwhelm every day.
Just days after we returned from our Disneyland trip, Mark was offered a job in Colorado. We luckily had been organizing things on and off for a while, so there wasn’t too much of that to do. But there is having your house neat and tidy, and then there is having your house READY TO SELL neat and tidy. There is a difference, my friends!
We immediately went into the crazy of getting the house all ready to sell. Organizing, DEEP cleaning, all the things. Then things kind of got wild. We had someone in our ward that was possibly interested in our home for her parents, and then we had someone moving into the area that had a sibling already here that was interested. Things were happening FAST! It turned out neither of these worked out for us. But when I called a realtor to start the process she told me she had a buyer that she was sure would be very interested. Within two days we had a great offer on the table. It was NUTS!
So we never technically listed our house or anything! It all happened so smoothly which was another testament to us that this was the right time.
However, this is when things got tricky. I think WE ALL know how bonkers the market is right now. But there were some more unique tricky parts for our family. First, Rock Springs felt like the only place that wasn’t experiencing a huge surge in prices. Yes, prices have definitely gone up. But when I compared the “stats” of our house to pretty much any other market (except for maybe Texas, which was high on our list bytheway), the prices were so much higher than what we were able to get for our home.
Now before everyone thinks I am just a horrible gold-digger, this was simply hard because it felt like we were leaving a relatively mild market and going into CHAOS. And we needed every penny we could get!
The second thing that was hard is we are so sick of moving. We are moving to Colorado with the mindset of it being OUR PLACE. We are so ready to put down roots. So we wanted to be in a home that could see us through. Lydia got her wheelchair two months ago and with her mobility being what it is, stairs are only going to be increasingly difficult the older (and bigger) she gets.
So it was/is really important for us to make our home as accessible as possible. We don’t want Lydia to feel separated from the rest of the family. We want her to be wherever everyone else is. So we really wanted a single story home.
However, in case you are wondering, they do not make large one-story homes. Like ever. There was nothing at all like that. The other tricky part is we also need a high number of rooms. Jacob with his autism NEEDS his space. It is a need. And Benjamin and Sarah can’t share long-term as they get older, and so this means we need a five-bedroom, single story house. This does not exist. Or at least not in our price point.
So this put us on the path of building. Mark and I found a floorplan that WE LOVED. It was, dare I say, perfect! We were thrilled.
However, building these days is hard – for LOTS of reasons. The biggest reason for us was most builders have a list of floorplans that they use and you can pick from those and customize. But there wasn’t any builder with a floorplan like the one we needed.
So that puts us on the path of custom. Which means $$$. I looked online at dozens and dozens of companies and read reviews and it was so discouraging. Either they weren’t even taking on new projects or their pricing was insane. One company told me that they wouldn’t even consider a build unless it had a minimum budget of $1.5 million. WHAT?! Are there really that many people with that kind of money?! Anyway, as you can tell, it is still a tough issue for me.
It was REALLY hard for Mark and me to accept. BUT move on, we must!
We had about a day to grieve the loss of that dream, and then we had to be adults and move on. We looked online and found the name of the bishop in the area we were considering and he put us in contact with a realtor. We could not have been blessed with a better realtor. He went above and beyond the job of a realtor and we are so grateful for him.
He found us a beautiful, new-build home, in a great part of town that even has a room on the main floor if we need it down the road for Lydia.
The next couple weeks were filled with online signature, packing, organizing medical supplies and doctors, etc. It’s been long and tedious. Mark started work in Colorado the end of March and so I was on my own with the kiddos the last couple weeks in Wyoming.
Gramps and Grammy offered to take Sarah and Benjamin the couple of days leading up to the move so I could get more work done. It was actually a really sweet time to just spend with Jacob and Lydia, even if we were packing!
Mark got home at 2 in the morning the night before we were moving. So he only got about three hours of sleep before we were up, disassembling beds, and getting those last things packed up that I needed some muscle for. They didn’t have the right size truck we needed locally, and so Gramps and Grammy picked up the big truck in Evanston and drove it over to our house.
We got another smaller truck in town as well as a tow for our car. And then such a beautiful, kind miracle occured. We asked our ward if they could come help us load and I was absolutely stunned by the amount of help we had. We have moved a lot and never had we had so much help. We probably had 25 people come and help and it was incredible. It far surpassed any expectation we had and I am still a little emotional when I think about it. I am so grateful for those that came and offered of their time and help.
We loaded up and then my Mom and I got to cleaning. Luckily, it goes pretty fast once everything is out! Mark went around patching and painting the holes from pictures and dings that occurred.
That afternoon came with that Wyoming wind that we know so well though. It was MADNESS. We hurried and got on the road. We loaded up on a Saturday but we didn’t close on our house until Monday so we had some in-between time. We wanted to just get out of town a little bit and so we drove to Rawlins. We were quite the caravan with Mark in a 15-foot truck with a car tow, my Dad with a 26-foot truck, my Mom in her car with Sarah and Ben, and me in our van with Jacob and Lydia. I think we all agreed it was the longest hour and a half to get to Rawlins though!
We crashed pretty hard once we got there. We ate in the hotel and went to bed early.
The next morning we got up to severe wind. The interstate was closed to all lightweight, high profile vehicles. We had no idea what to do. Our original plan was to drive the rest of the way to Colorado. We decided we would stay another night and hope for better conditions. But when Mark and Gramps talked to the hotel clerk about extending our stay he told them about a different route that was open and usually less windy. So the menfolk wanted to go for it!
Sunday was a LONG day. Our little detour nearly doubled the time and we still had strong gusts as well as drifted snow on the road. Conditions were not ideal. BUT we made it! We treated ourselves to an actual meal (fast food got old REAL fast!) and then went to bed.
We anticipated Monday to be pretty relaxed. We kind of lazied about in the morning at the hotel and then drove out to the house. This was my first time seeing the house completed. When we pulled up, one of the construction manager people (I truly have no idea what his title is) was there and asked if we wanted to do our final walkthrough now. We gladly said yes!
The house looked great and there were just a couple minor things they needed to do still. We finished up at noon and thought we were good to go!
We had a late closing time because the people purchasing our house were closing that morning and we wanted to make sure we had enough time for wiring the money and everything. Our closing time was 3:00 and we thought everything was in motion.
We had gotten a message from our realtor that the people buying our house had closed at 9:45 that morning. However, after our walk through I checked our account and we still didn’t have the money wired into our account yet. We began somewhat frantically trying to figure out what was going on. We learned that the title company back in Wyoming hadn’t wired the money until 12:00 and this can sometimes take several hours to actually make its way into your account.
We tried hard not to panic but the money was not coming in. Finally, just before 2:00 our money came into our account. Mark ran over to the bank to initiate the wire for our new home. Then we had to get 45 minutes away to our title company. It was a stressful couple hours.
We ended up having Jacob and Lydia with us while we signed the papers and they still didn’t have the money. We honestly weren’t sure if we were going to be able to close. BUT, at about 4:15, the money finally came through!
We hopped in the car and scurried over to our NEW HOME to meet some members of our new ward that had offered to help. We were again so humbled by how many people came to help us move in. We are so grateful for their sacrifice of time and back to help us unload. We are really grateful and excited to get to know these amazing people better.
WE DID IT! We made it through the long days and nights that got us here. And we can’t wait for all of the goodness to come.
