The reason why this Christmas picture never made it out

We had good intentions of sending a Christmas picture/card out this year. But it didn't happen because we got the greatest Christmas present ever, which meant only the minimum happened. Sorry this is the looooong version of this story, written for my own record keeping.

In July of 2010, we realized we needed to consider refinancing our home because the rates were at historical lows. Also, we were coming up on 7 years of living in our house, which meant our rate would be adjusting soon. We gathered research and talked about how much longer we planned to be in the area, how long we thought we'd live comfortably in our present home, etc.

We loved our house, but the part I had issues with is our location. Our house was located 15-20 minutes from everything. For some things, that was a huge blessing, such as the airport, temple, Mall of America, Dave's work, etc. But, for others it was a huge pain: the kid's school, doctors, Wal-Mart, Target, dentist, basically any store, etc. As the kids have been getting older, I have been spending a crazy amount of time in the car and have spent hours killing time at Target, waiting for the next thing, without enough time to drive home and back. It was clear to me, that I wanted to try to sell our house and move closer rather than refinance. We contacted some agents to see how much our house might be worth. We figured we would lose on our house, gain on the one we bought, but win on the rates. So, we worked hard and listed our house in September of 2010.

The 'For Sale' sign was there through four seasons

We looked at houses and picked all sorts of beautiful homes that would suit us well. But, the selling business didn't go so well. We had plenty of showings and worked hard to make each one immaculate and perfect. The months passed, and we had the cleanest house in the world, but our hopes dimmed. We knew the market was tough, but we never thought it would drag out the way it did.

Showings became our way of life, where we weren't really living in our house. The Christmas tree was not in the 'right' spot, and we allowed only limited decorations; we had very little company over because who knew if we'd have a showing and we'd have to cancel; all the family pictures had been taken down; we eliminated all the small trash cans in the house, etc....it affected every part of our life. We had a showing on Easter Sunday and on Halloween. A showing on a Sunday afternoon with zero notice, while our kids were napping. They just approached our house and wanted to see it. We had early morning and late night showings. Once we had a 7 a.m. showing that they never showed up for! We think the poor market, overload of foreclosures near us, our timing, our price range, and the new construction down the street were the biggest problems with selling our house.

We often questioned if we were doing the wrong thing, but the more we unattached ourselves from the house, the more difficult it was to change that mindset and decide we were going to stay. So we pressed onward. During this time, we fell in love with a house that had been on the market for years and was listed as a short sale. I'm not sure why we even looked at it in the first place, because the price was so far off what we could afford. We had been told that short sale's can take months and months and they are easy to cancel the transaction, so we thought we had nothing to lose, so we made an incredibly low offer on it.

The other agent didn't even acknowledge our offer nor send it into the bank. We were discouraged. Soon, someone else actually offered on it, and that did go to the bank. All along, I had a feeling that offer would fall through and couldn't stop feeling like this house was right for us -- which actually made no sense because it was so far out of our range. But the offer eventually did fall through. And then somebody else offered, but same story. It had been nearly a year since our first offer (with a tumbling housing market in the meantime) so we tried again with our exact same extremely low-ball offer. Again, the agent didn't send it to the bank.

What Kyler looked like the weekend we put our house
up for sale (9 months)

Around this time, we realized in order to sell our house, we needed a reality check and asked our realtor to find out what our existing house might actually be worth, since it was not selling at our listing price. The agent came back with a very low price -- which was a reality check at how much the market had dropped in those 11 months. With the listing agent of our 'dream home' not acknowledging our offer and this blow of our house being worth so little, it was too much for me to take.

Frustrated, defeated, and confused, we turned to prayer for guidance. For some reason, the answer to my prayers was that we needed to take our house off the market and everything would work out with the 'Dream' house. It made no sense because the Dream house was listed about $75,000 above what we could possibly pay for it, and our house was worth at least $25,000 less than we were hoping to sell it for. So, tearfully, we took the house off the market and tried to live in our home again and move forward.

This is what Kyler looked like when we finally moved into
our house (2 years old)! 

Each time I was in the neighborhood of the 'Dream Home', I would drive by it. Not long after our latest low-ball offer, I drove by and saw it had been taken off the market. We tried to analyze our way through that one, but didn't understand why a house that had been listed for sale for two years as a short sale would just go off the market if it didn't sell and didn't go into foreclosure. About four weeks after that, I drove by and noticed a new "For Sale" sign, listed with a new agent. I got a glimmer of hope, and called the agent directly, telling her that we wanted to buy it but could only afford so much. She said she recommended us making the offer because she looks at things differently and welcomes low-ball offers because it helps the sellers know what price the bank is willing to take, because they usually counter the low offer. She said she would consider submitting it. So, we called our agent and tried one more time. A few days later, we heard the sellers signed it and it went to the bank!!! This is what I wanted more than anything because the bank was who we would be negotiating with, so getting it to the negotiator was huge!

Around this time, we learned about a management company that handles the stress of renting a property, and we were considering renting our house. Even with the offer into the bank, we didn't re-list our house.

We had worked hard over the years to make our house our own, but after
showing it for so long, we were so detached and ready to move on.

Weeks and weeks passed, not hearing much. Soon we learned the house was about to have the Sheriff's Sale, which would send it into foreclosure (But the bank wouldn't own it for another 6 months from the sale). The other agent was able to push off the sale with our offer at the bank.

We figured the bank would either accept our offer, reject it, or counter so high that it wasn't even a temptation because we knew we couldn't afford it. Well, just before Thanksgiving, I got a call that they countered our offer, and it was so close!! It felt like the worst thing that could happen because it was close enough that I thought we'd always regret it if we didn't take it, but far enough away from what we could afford where we wouldn't even be able to afford to buy appliances for our house (appliances and this house is a whole other story). My agent said banks "never" take counter offers with short sales and this bank won't pay closing costs. She seemed to think it was their counter price or nothing. We finally decided to go against our agent's advice, take the risk, and counter the bank.

The Christmas tree, decorations, and presents were boxed up before we 

went to bed on Dec. 25!

We waited on pins and needles, and after Thanksgiving, we got the call that they accepted it!!! We had 30 days to close, which meant we were moving January 4. I'm sure others can appreciate the fact that we had 30 days to pack and move our entire house, all the while celebrating Christmas and doing all the December concerts, recitals, parties, etc. Thankfully, my sister Lauren came for a couple weeks and worked so hard. The other concern was how we were going to move in sub-zero temps and piles and piles of snow that Minnesota is known for during that time of year.

Our first winter in our first MN house. We had many great memories,
and even added two new babies to our family in that home. Although, we
never anticipated staying there that long (6 1/2 years) as it had been the
longest we had lived anywhere since we had been married.

But moving day came, and we had the warmest, driest winter and the sun was shining, nobody wore coats, and there was zero snow on the ground!! This is unheard of for January 7 in Minnesota.

The long awaited 'Dream Home'

The other stress was two days after we moved, Dave started his crazy busy traveling schedule and 10 days after the move we flew out for a pre-scheduled Disney Cruise with all of my family. For about 3-4 weeks straight, Dave and I went to bed no earlier than 2:30 a.m. and were up by 7 a.m. the next day. I worked so hard and fast that I didn't take time to eat and lost 15 pounds! Yikes! This moving process was one of the more physically demanding times I have ever endured.

But, while we were on our cruise, we found renters for our house and all the loose ends and unknowns, were finally coming together.

Looking out our living room window. One of my favorite features of our new
home is the windows/view. 

This was a very long test of patience and one of those, that we kept thinking and hoping that we would be able to tell the story in this way someday! We feel so blessed and grateful for the way things worked out. We hope our children can someday forgive us for putting them through showing the house for that long! But, they are so excited to live across the street from the neighborhood pool and park, that I think they have gotten over it! We know that prayers are heard, and we are not forgotten by the Lord ... even though at times it may feel that way. This house story was a lesson of prayer, patience, long-suffering, with an ending of great blessings and joy.