Ghosts of Christmas Past, part 14

In this picture you get to see the full effect of my husbands glasses in the sun. And I think that Diana looks a little bit like a puppet, the way she is perched on my husbands hands. We are standing in front of what I hope will be our last home.

As promised there is a miracle story involved in our last move. Perhaps a list would be the best way to sum it up.

1. Unless we were interested in sending our son to the ghetto high school where it might be questionable if he would return home alive, we needed to move.

2. My husband applied to a job in AZ to be near his newly widowed mother.

3. He interviewed there, and we spent one of the most miserably hot days looking at homes in early July.

4. At the end of July he still had not received an offer. One day I would wake up sure that we were moving and spend the day packing boxes. The next day I would tell myself I was being crazy because we had no job to go to.

5. At the end of one trying week, I went to the temple. While I was pondering, I knew we weren't moving to AZ. I also knew exactly where the perfect house was for sale.

6. The next day a Saturday, I drove to the very cul de sac that I had been looking at all spring. And of course there was the perfect house for sale.

7. Monday I called my Realtor to say I had found a house and could he take us to see it. We went that afternoon.

8. Thursday we put our house on the market at noon. Our first looker came at 7:00 that night.

9. I spent a crazed 45 mins running through my house, sweeping the tops of counters into drawers, and stuff on floors into closets.

10. It worked, we had an offer Friday morning.

11. Friday afternoon, we made an offer on the house we wanted.

12. By Sunday night we had countered back and forth and it was ours.

And that was my miracle house buying story. Heavenly Father is the best realtor ever. I highly recommend Him. Found a house, sold a house and bought a house in one week. And it was exactly in the ward and schools that we wanted.

Trent started 9th grade at the high school he wanted. Jared started 6th grade at the middle school with all his soccer friends. And Diana started 1st grade in a 9 month school so her schedule could match with the boys. It was the perfect time for everyone to make the switch.

Moving is never fun. And it was no different this time. But it was worth it. We had to downsize a little bit, which included our cats. They did not come with us. But really at this time I tried to adopt the mantra "Less is more".