Gorgeous new house!!

So there we were living in my moms house with my three kids five and under... We had been living with her a month. Keri had just found out he had gotten the job he really wanted so the next step was to find us a house.  That part seemed really hard.  First how in the world were Keri and I going to agree on a house?! We rarely agree on movies! Our first disagreement was on location. I wanted to live in the Kaysville/Layton area... he was open to pretty much anything and it didn't matter how far away from Kaysville/Layton it was.  We grew up in Kaysville after my dad retired from the miltary and I just loved the area. It is pretty much next to everything you need to include my favorite part.. the freeway.  The most important thing about living in the Kaysville/Layton area however was that I wanted my kids to be in the Davis School District and more importantly I wanted my kids to go to Davis High. This was my driving force behind everything.  Keri thought I was limited our options really wanted us to look at a few houses down in Syracuse.  Mostly what I have against Syracuse is that you have to drive down Gentile for what seems like years to get down to the houses and I just didn't want to do that.  In North Carolina you had to drive forever to get anywhere and I was over that. I live in Utah now. I want to be live close to things. Not be driving down a long road every day to get places... but to avoid fight I hopped in the car and drove down the looooong road to look at some houses.  I'll be honest I feel in LOVE with a house down there! I really wanted this house. It was perfect. Right across the street was this gorgeous park with a lake. It was amazing. The only draw back.. the only thing saving me from taking this house was that it was on the worlds busiest road and there was no way I could buy this house that had a gotgeous park across the street with a lake and take the chance the twins would open our front door and run across the worlds busiest street and get hit by a car going 60mph.

Well I was starting to get nervous.  We were pretty crammed into my moms house.  She already had a full house before we moved in as Kelly and Shaun live there. While it was fun to all be under one roof after six years of living so far away it was time to be in our own home again.  Well just around the corner from my mom is this super gorgeous new subdivision. It use to be farmland that had horses on it. It is set against the mountains and it is just this luscious green and super pretty to look at. Well last year it got sold and homes started popping up. When I saw that I will admit I was mad!! They sold the pretty farmland for HOMES?! Is there no end to that in Utah? Where are all the poor horses going to run now? There use to be so much farmland in Kaysville and virtually all of it is gone now.

Getting past my soap box my mom dragged me into the car one Saturday and told me we were going to drive into that new subdivision around the corner.  She told me I WAS going to find a house there. I had previously driven through it and I had hated it!! I don't know how to describe it. It was not your normal subdivision. They would have normal houses and then they would have these very modern, very odd looking houses. My friend said if you saw these homes in Park City you wouldn't think they looked weird.. but we weren't in Park City. We were in Layton.  They also had this bright orange and white home right as you turned onto the street. I wasn't sure what was going on with this neighborhood but I was SURE it wasn't for me.

Well we drove around and we actually found this cute green house.  It was probably only half finished so the door was wide open.  Mom, Shaun, and I were in the car so we decided it was a good idea to go in the house and check it out. I noticed a sign out front from the builder so I asked mom if I should call them.  She said it was a good idea.  I called the number and a guy named Dallin answered. I told him I was outside his house and would love to go inside.  He said that would be fine and asked if I wanted him to meet us. I told him sure. I told him we had been pre-approved for a certain amount already and he said he had a few houses in the area he could show us too.  Perfect I thought!! So we went in the house while we waited for him and we HATED it.  Oh my gosh we did not like this house.  So then we are outside in the car regretting that we called this guy. Naturally mom tells me as much... you shouldn't have called him she says.  Well a few minutes later he shows up and drives us around the corner to a blueish/gray house.  The outside is cute.  We walk in and I immediately fall in LOVE with this house.  I immediately know more than I have ever know anything in my life that I am standing in my house.  Everything was perfect. It had granite counter tops. It had a balcony off of the master bedroom. It had a huge bonus room. It has 4 bedrooms upstairs. It has a 3 car garage. It has a huge laundry room. It has a walk in pantry. It is perfect. My walk in closet is huge. My bathroom is huge. It has a built in school area with shelves. There is nothing I don't love about this house.  I called Keri over and he loved it as well.  I couldn't believe this was happening. I can't remembering being this excited about anything.  We signed the contract right then.  Dallin was the son of the Contractor we decided on a price that was a littler lower than the asking price of the house so we had to wait a few days to see if the dad would accept the price and luckily he did.  After that day which was Sept 20, 2014 everything pretty much went off without a hitch.

October 23, 2014 we closed on our house and the very next day we moved into our new house!!! It was so excited to get the keys to our first house!! I feel so blessed that this all happened the way it did.  Blessed that Keri worked so hard to get his degree to get this job to afford this house. Blessed that our heavenly father had a hand in all of this. Keri's job had to line up perfectly for us to get into this house when we did. I feel like in life we focus so much on the negative and we don't stop to give thanks for the good.  We survived the weekend in this house with just the basics as we are waiting on our household goods to come out of storage and be delivered on Tuesday! Let me tell you .. you think you have everything until you are trying to take dinner out of the stove without oven mitts... or you take your shirt out for church on sunday and you don't have an iron.... or you've made baked potato's and you don't have a cheese grater.  I think all of these little things make for good memories and one day when we are older and all settled into our life here in our cute little house we will look back and laugh at the time I thought taking turkey steaks out of the oven with pull ups was a good idea!!!

Big changes to a brand new start!!

Our family went through a lot of new changes since I lost wrote! For starters due to a heart condition Keri retired from the military after 10 years. We knew it was coming but when the retirement orders finally came down it was really sad.  I decided to make our last summer in North Carolina memorable so we made it a busy one.  Cambree and her best friend Bella enrolled in swim classes in June, in July they did dance, and in August they did a tumbling camp and another swim session.  Is there anything better than spending the summer with your best friend? I just love Tabitha so it was nice to spend the summer with her as well.... tiring but nice.  One day the girls rushed from one thing to the next to the next. They went from tumbling, to swim, and finished off the afternoon with dance.  I told you we were ending summer with a bang! Cambree originally was mad at me for putting her in the second session of swim lessons by ended up loving them. By the last day of swim class my baby girl actually jumped off the diving board. I have never been more proud of her. I never in a million years thought she would jump!!! She progressed so good over the course of the summer.  Dad drove Shannon out to Utah for a month so he was able to stay with us a few days at our house. We took him on base to the Movie/Pool night.  They were showing Goonies and you were able watch the movie while you swam. Cam and I went to all three this summer. They were so fun! Cam has turned into quite the swimmer! We threw in as many playdates as we could knowing our days were numbered.

As for me I spent as much time with my friends as I could. I was really going to miss Tania, Kimmi, and Tabitha. I can't say enough about those girls.  Tabitha was my partner in crime during my last year in N.C.  It was so nice to have our girls do everything together. They had Pre K together, they had dance together, and they just liked to be together. They were truly two peas in a pod.  The swim teachers asked me if they were sisters because they were always talking about each other. I think the first session they did more singing and dancing in the pool than they did actual swimming and that is okay They had this song they always song that goes "Me and my girls are best friends forever..."  I'm going to miss seeing them dancing and singing around the house.

Well we got the house packed up, the movers came, and we headed up to Shannon's house to spend the night before our big trip across the country to Utah.  It was sad to see our house in the rearview mirror. The twins were just 10 months when we moved to NC.  They learned to walk in that house. We watched them grow up. We have so many memories in that house. I hated saying goodbye to North Carolina. It was the most content I remember ever feeling in my life. I truly had the best friends. Cambree had the most incredible friends ever as well. I hated making her say goodbye.

The long trek across the country wasn't bad at all actually. We decided we didn't want to see West Virginia again so we went down through Tenessee.  Let me tell you it was gorgeous! I would live there in a heart beat!! Since the Air Force was paying for this trip we decided to travel in style and stayed in a Hyatt closed to the Grand Ole Opry. We got to our hotel and I took Cambree to the pool.  The next day Cam put on her pink cowboy hat and pulled out her guitar and we stopped by the grand ole opry for pictures. She fit right in. My girl is going to be a star one day and we can pull out that picture one day and be like yep, we knew it back then! We took our time and 4 days later we rolled into Utah. I had forgotten how gorgeous the West truly was. When we got to Wyoming I was finally getting excited to be out West!!

Cambree only had a few days to get adjusted to the time zone because it was right to Kindergarten for her!!! I can't believe my baby girl is in Kindergarten. If we had stayed in NC she would have gone all day... well turns out half day out here means barely 3 hours.  The school day out here is just as long as she was going for Pre K. I was surprised!! Mrs. Cooper did an amazing job getting Cambree ready for Kindergarten as she is already a few months into school and knows everything they are going over. I think school is going to be a breeze for her this year. Cam has been a real trooper. I put her in dance out here and she will start tumbling soon. She has two friends at school she really likes and one of them is actually a cute little boy. That is something new. I think we have transitioned pretty good but there are days we still long for our NC life.