Boxes are fun toys

Relevant picture of cute child

When I posted my status on Facebook today about packing, I went back and read the post I wrote about having our house on the market and I realized I'm long overdue for an update.

(short version)
We're under contract! Hooray! Praise God!

(long version)
We (and by we, I mean mostly me) were getting show weary and after 6 weeks on the market with no offers, talked to our realtor about taking it off. She encouraged us to wait until after the election, since people were waiting on big decisions until then and we agreed. That was a Monday.

That Monday was the day after we got home from a wonderful vacation with my parents. It took us a few days to unpack and put things away, but in those few days people kept showing up to look at the house. Now, to back up a few weeks, I had spent several very stressful and long-hour days early in September getting the house "staged" to show. And if you wondered, it is not like the shows where the stagers come and send the owners off and they come back to a delightfully lovely show-ready house. Ha!

If I thought it was hard to stage the house, it was even harder to live in a staged house, being ready at the drop of a hat to have someone come through it. That's why I was show-weary. And that's why I was taking my time unpacking from vacation, because with no appointments to see the house, I was enjoying just getting to live in it and let Ayla play with all her stuff.

So, Sunday we get home, Monday we decided to stay on the market a bit longer, Thursday a couple shows up to see the house without having called me first. Our place was a mess! Probably not hoarder style mess, but definitely not show ready. I let them come in and see it since they had gone to all the trouble to come, I just apologized profusely for the mess and asked them to please come see it during the open house that weekend when it would be beautiful. They were very kind about it and mentioned that they didn't mind getting to see what it would look like when they lived there.

The following Monday they came to see it again, with an appointment, and the next day they put in an offer! Full asking price with no seller subsidy. This was such an answer to prayer. The week before we put our house on the market, two other houses in our neighborhood went on. Since we're in a townhouse community, all the houses are virtually identical. Ours has a few more upgrades than the others that are (still) for sale, but I think the main difference was the mess. Had to be!

That was about three weeks ago and we close in another three weeks and have passed all the hurdles between offer and closing so far. The home inspection and appraisal came back with expected results and the couple seems really excited to move in and start making this their home.

Meanwhile, we've been looking for a place for us to live between now and next summer. Of course God answered this prayer, too, and provided us with a beautiful rental house in our price range right in the neighborhood we wanted with a landlord who was willing to do a short-term lease. We're moving in over there this weekend, though we can take our time before having to be out of here.

We are still looking for a new family for Mocha. The Virginia family I mentioned before turned out to have dog allergies, which may have been important information to know before they started looking for a dog, but at least they found out before adopting her!

She's got a new best friend, though, who would spend every waking moment with her if we'd let her!

Cute child with new best friend

And in completely unrelated moving news, Ayla's hair is long enough for this now.

Big, Not-Pregnant, News

When I blogged my pregnancy news, I snuck it in the comments of a post about a Walmart being constructed across the street (It didn't turn out to be of the Neighborhood variety after all). When my husband was deploying overseas for a year, I came up with a cute story about our dog, Mocha, taking a big trip (She didn't end up going with John, but has gone to live with her cousin in Texas).

Well, the news I have to share now is probably equally as big, but I'm just going to straight up tell you.

Next summer, we're moving to "EssAy" for two years.

I know, I said I was going to just tell you, but we do need a little bit of a code. I'm careful with what gets posted here so we don't end up in some crazy search results. However, you are smart enough to get this one easily.

Just imagine the word above is sounding out the initials for a big, oil-rich country where women can't drive and I won't have to worry about pork being in any of our food, and you've got it!

So far away and so hot, you're thinking. Yes.

We're excited though. We've talked about living overseas, especially in that region, since before we were married. Though we've both been deployed and traveled extensively, this will be our first time actually living together abroad. We'll find out for sure if this is the life for us.

From our visit to Turkey this summer. 

I don't know many of the details of us going yet, and I'm trying not to think about the leaving part right now. I'm sure you'll be hearing about it plenty, though!

I do have two big prayer requests regarding the move, if you are into the praying sort of thing.

First, we are trying to find a new home for Mocha. She is such a wonderful pet and we'd love to keep her, but where we're going is not very dog friendly, especially the kind of dog who needs space to run around outside. I've pleaded and bugged everyone on Facebook and we've placed Craigslist ads. Right now there is one family here in Virginia who is interested, but we have to get her here from Texas (where she's been since last February!) first, meet them and be in mutual agreement. Please pray we find her a good home and that she adjusts to them well.

Second, we have our house on the market. This could be a post unto itself and probably will be, but if you've ever sold your home, you know what we're facing. Even though we're not moving overseas until next year, we thought we'd try to take advantage of the slight rise in the housing market our area is having. It's been about a month and we've had no offers yet, but we're going to wait a few more weeks. If we don't sell now, we'll try again in the spring. We just thought it would be nice to sell with no real time crunch. Obviously if we don't sell in the spring, renting is an option, just not our preferred one right now. Please pray we stay in perfect peace throughout this process and keep our eyes on our true Source

Thanks, friends! I'll be sure to report when we see movement on either of these. By the way, thank you for reading after all these months of sabbatical (yeah, I'm gonna call it that).

How are you doing?