We had been thinking about moving for some time now. We even had an offer in on a house December of 2011 but it just didn't "feel" right to us, so we didn't pull the trigger. Then interest rates had dropped again and I was talking to my mom and she suggested if we were going to move, now would be an ideal time. Plus our new baby and third child is due in August. I have nothing against the kids sharing a room (since our Fortuna home only had three bedrooms) but the rooms are so small in the Fortuna home, that they would barely even fit a bunk bed. Although we love the Olympus Cove area and our neighbors, there were so many things about our house that we just didn't like. There are no sidewalks in front of the Fortuna home, the backyard is NOT kid friendly (which we didn't think about since we bought the house sans kids), the kitchen is much too small, not enough storage space, it's really draft and cold in the winter (it was built in 1959, so insulation was kind of non-existant at that time), and the garage is awkward and too small. We had already put money into this house in finishing the basement, adding a bathroom, changing out some old things that needed to be fixed among other things and thought we had already put way too much money into this house. We will miss the wonderful wildlife we were able to see living up there in the foothills, though. And the views of the Salt Lake valley and Mount Olympus as well. With the help of my good friend/real estate agent, Miranda, we listed our house June 8 since we would be spending that week in Park City, making our house really easy for showings. Even though it was extremely hard to keep our Fortuna home always organized, neat and ready for a showing, we received an offer on the home about 30 days of listing it. That completely took us by surprise, as some of the comparable houses in the area had been up for sale for several months. We honestly thought we had that kind of time, but that just wasn't the case. We had to get really serious about looking for a new house (one that we would be happy in for MANY years to come) and packing everything up. Can I just say that moving has to be one of the most nightmarish tasks you can inflict on yourself? I totally bought into the idea that I could move in an organized manner, go through things I didn't need or want easily, and that it wouldn't take too much time. WRONG!!!! It was horrible! As you start to pack, you realize all the stuff you really do have and with such short time constraints, organizing and going through it was not really an option. Plus the headache of finding enough boxes (because they are way too expensive to buy). We drove all the way out to Eagle Mountain because Miranda's cousin had just moved and had boxes she was giving away. We had packed HUNDREDS of boxes and filled up THREE of those moving pods. We completely underestimated how many pods we would need and how much time it would take to not only pack up our belongings, but move it into the pods as well. My brothers, Jono and Seth, helped out so much but it still took two weekends to load the pod and we were frantically still moving things the last day in our house. Jerry and Ruth were kind enough to let us stay at their house while we found our new home and let us store some of our stuff at their house as well. I NEVER want to make a move like that again. It was so difficult...but it was worth it because I LOVE our new house!!
Just before we were completely out of our Fortuna house, we found this lovely house our new house about 5-10 minutes away from our old one. We had seen pictures of it before and driven by it because we liked it so much, but it was just out of our price range. Then, by some miracle, it dropped right into our price range and we immediately put an offer on it July 27th after walking through it. As we walked through it, it just felt "right" to both of us. I know Miranda wanted to strangle us (especially me) because there was always one thing or another that I didn't like about the houses we had previously looked at (and we had looked at LOTS of them). OR I would like it and Kevin wouldn't for some reason, and vice-versa.
The Cotswold house has a crazy history because my friend and old neighbor, Holly Parkin had a best friend in high school who's parents built this house. Then we went to the ward that this house would be in to see what it was like and when Kevin looked at the church program, he saw that the bishop of the ward was named Arrigona and realized that that is who was selling the house (so we will always be known as the people who lived in the bishop's old house) Then someone dropped by one night and asked for the Arrigona's older daughter, who obviously didn't live their anymore. And later we figured out that that person who had dropped by was Erin, Holly's sister-in-law (Erin said she thought that Kevin looked familiar, but wasn't sure). Then we were looking at tables at San Fransisco Design in Park City and the sales woman knew the house we were moving into because she and her parents knew the Arrigonas (Mr. Arrigona is a really high-end furniture maker). It was all just so weird!
When we finally signed on the dotted line, we moved all of our things in to our new house (but I insisted that Kevin hire movers this time because it was so awful moving out of the Fortuna house, which was a great idea because it only took about 2.5 hours for the movers to move everything out of the pods and into the specified rooms!! Much better than two long weekends!!) and are over-whelmed by the unpacking that is looming over us. Plus, we had our lovely baby boy, Hendrix, in the mist of all of this...not quite an easy walk-through-the-park type situation.
Our Costwold Court home
We finally are in our new house (as disheveled and unorganized as it is with boxes EVERYWHERE...will I ever make a dent in putting stuff away?) and this is a picture of us ready to spend our first night in our wonderful new home!!
Me, Marley and Grace: our first night in our new house!!
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