First couple days in the house

Here are some shots of Hannah the first couple days in the new house


Hannah sure loves her daddy


First fat lip.  Was running outside on the new patio and just got going and didn't stop in time.  She is smiling even through her pain


My "cleaning girl".  She saw me put that bandanna on my head when I cleaned and wanted one just like it.


We have a big walk in closet and Hannah likes to get pillows and snuggle up with a movie

The day has come...Moving day...AGAIN!!

"If its meant to be, it will all work out"

We are closing on the house.  We are leaving St. George to head to Reno.  We will be together as a family (after all these months)

Background:

We were hoping for a miracle.  Normally it takes a month to get everything in order when buying a house.  The sellers in Reno wanted a miracle and wanted to close in about 2 1/2 weeks.  We tried to make it happen, but it was just impossible.  I think they wanted to close so quickly so they could avoid making a mortgage payment for the month.  Also the hold up was that our mortgage company wasn't so sure the house was worth what we were going to pay for it.  So they did another appraisal and that took an additional week.  At the end of the day we paid the same price we were going to pay when we originally signed the contact.  That extra week did nothing but give Stu heartburn and me anxiety wondering if we were going to be in this house.  One thing we overlooked is that I was in Utah and my signature is needed on the paperwork to close on the house (slight problem)!  We got all the paperwork for Stu to be my Power of Attorney and sign on behalf of me.  That was cheaper than flying me in for a day to sign papers.

We left St. George Friday the 28th.  Drove all day.  Stu was scheduled to fly home that afternoon but was called back to work and would not be coming home till later in the evening.  That left me to pick up the BIG Budget truck and start the packing process.  We had family and some of Stu's friends come and load up the truck.  We of course had to move when it was 100+ outside.  We took about 3 hours and got everything in the storage unit into the truck ready to leave for Reno bright and early the next day.  Stu and I didn't end up going to bed till after midnight and he was getting up to leave SLC by 6AM. 

My dad followed Stu in my parents van.  My mom came with me to help with the baby.  Stu and my dad left at 6AM SLC time and arrived at 4PM Reno time (we are on Pacific time now).  So it took them about 11 hours to drive across the great state of Nevada.  My mom and I left at 9AM SLC and arrived about 4:30PM Reno time.  That gave us till 6PM to eat dinner before we had the Elder's Quorum would be showing up to help us unload.  

Thankfully we had about 6 guys show up and it took them 1 hour to unload the van!  It was so great to meet some of the people that would be in our ward.  We had such a welcoming feeling and it made the move so much easier.

Bed was first thing on our minds after the long ride we had.  Thankfully my parents were able to stay till Tuesday and helped a great deal to unload a lot of our stuff.

So we are here...Reno feels like..home.  It feels good to be here.  There was a reason we were suppose to be here, in this house.  And I don't feel like I need to wait around to find out why.  I already know why...it just feels..right!

More pictures of the house to come!

 Yep you guessed it!  Water in our storage unit!!!!  Seriously...good thing we have insurance on our stuff so we can replace the things that got ruined

 The budget truck packed to the end!  THANKFULLY nothing really shifted and everything make it okay

Hannah is just glad to be out of the car.  She decided to rest at the bottom of our steps

Having fun in St. George

Here are the fun things we did while we were in St. George for 2 weeks:



Hannah getting her bangs trimmed from grandma's hair stylist

 Visited Grandpa's grave

Played lots of Chinese Checkers with grandma

Hannah putting stickers on herself, mom and dad (sadly we only got dad's stickers picture)

Cooling off in the pool

Eating Ice Cream cones

Playing in the yard with dad (and the dog)

Drinking from the hose (if the dog can do it..why can't I??)

The SUPER moon (although this picture doesn't do it justice)

Hanging out with dad as much as you can before he has to go back to work

Wearing mom's shoes and eating blueberries

Wearing grandma's jewelry

Suppose to...but didn't

We were scheduled to close on our house in Reno today.  We found out that our funds were not available (among other issues) and we wouldn't close till hopefully the Friday June 28th.  Oh...what stress!!  We were set to be in St. George for only 5 days and we are set to stay for 2 weeks.  It is hard to be in limbo land.  All our possessions are in storage, Stu is working in Reno and away from our family, we could lose the house we were set to get and then we would have to start all over...so stressful.  

But one thing I have found out through this whole process is that "If its meant to be, it will all work out".  For example when we discovered we could lose the house we were set to get, Stu started to look at rentals so we could be together in Reno and look for additional houses.  Every time he tried to get into a rental, he hit a brick wall.  It just wasn't meant to be.  We were directed to this house for some reason and nothing is standing in our way.  

Father's Day

Even though we were all in St. George with my grandma till our house closed in Reno, Stu was still working and had to get back to Reno on Monday.  With Father's Day on Sunday--Stu flew out of Vegas so we all drove down to Vegas to drop him off at the airport and have some dinner.  It was a quick trip, but fun to spend that extra time with Stu before he left.



Stu and Hannah at dinner

Moving Day

We closed on our house in Salt Lake and had to move everything into storage since we had a week lag time before our house in Reno would close.  We had to rent a U haul truck or else we would be making a dozen trips back and forth and spend all night moving our stuff.  We had all our family come out and help which made the process run so much quicker. 

 The U haul truck.  We ended up filling it 3 times I think

Hannah found her swimming suit and wanted to put it on and wanted to get into her bed right before we were going to take it apart.  She pretty much got to do anything she wanted since I knew this transition would be a challenge 

 Our master bedroom all cleaned out

 Last picture in our house.  This was after moving the night before, not much sleep and cleaning the next day before getting into a car for St. George. Whew...it was a long few days

This was the BIGGEST locker you could get.  We packed it all in and STILL had to send stuff home with parents.  Stu was just glad it was all over

Almost 2...22 months old

I can't believe I almost have a 2 year old.  Really??  Where did the time go??  Hannah has been busy in the last month.  She isn't 'talking' yet, but she is getting close.  We are still working through the 'unn..unnn.' and pointing to what she wants.  So once we find out what she wants we have her repeat it.  "you want water"?  "Say water".  So its a work in progress.  I can honestly say that is one thing I was not prepared for, being a parent.  Talking-I honestly thought they just start talking.  Silly me-

Here is what we learned from Hannah in the last month:
*She says "Pickle"
*Got another bad cold
*Likes to have socks on when she goes to bed and will NOT go to sleep till they are on
*LOVES to do puzzles.  On the computer or actual puzzles.  She is getting quite good with them
*Has found out that bandaids area  great fashion accessory.  She had some on her arm for a week
*Discovered screaming for fun..is fun.  This seems to happen during dinner and in the car

Nicknames:
Stink bug 


She is a good 'mamma'  and pushes her baby in the stroller.  She also uses that stroller to torment the dog and chase him around


Caught her on the move

And it begins

Our house has become overwhelmed by boxes.  Its the story of our life now.  We are hoping (yes HOPING) we have enough room in the storage unit to fit the whole house.  Stu has been stacking boxes in the unit to the ceiling!  

Official moving date: June 13th.  Thank goodness that is not a Friday, don't want the bad omen of Friday the 13th looming on us.

We FINALLY went to court

We have been trying to go to court over this mold problem we discovered in our wall.  (Read more here if interested in the whole mold story, scroll towards the bottom for the story) and today we finally had court date.  
We of course were super nervous about everything.  The judge was seeing 25 cases today and we decided to do mediation (thankfully cuz our case was 2nd to last).  Mediation took about an hour or so and we came out winning back 1/2 of what we originally wanted.  We decided to cut our losses and just move on and be glad we got what we did.  If we went before a judge it could have gone in our favor (we would have won all our $) or we could have loss more than we were going to be awarded in mediation.  My gambling skills are not good and I tend to be the bad penny when it comes to gambling, so we decided to take what they were willing to give us and run.  
We are happy it is FINALLY over!

Here we are after we 'won' our case

Going Away Party

My BFF Kristie gave us a going away party today.  It was so nice to see all my friends and to say good bye to them.  I know its not forever, when we come to visit we will see them.  It's been to nice to know that we are loved by so many.

Kristie's kids picked out the cake.  She had to do a 'spin' on the musical notes to make it work!  I think it turned out perfect

Also later that night Stu's friends gave us a sending off.  Dinner and dessert at our house.  Talking till 1AM!!  Good times!