Work is spying on me

The Internet is a cool yet spooky thing. They have tools out there that allow you to put in a word(s) and anytime that word(s) pop up on that Internet, you are informed of it and are shown where it is. My work set this so that whenever the name of our company is listed somewhere on the Internet, they are informed of where it is. In my last blog I wrote about the theft of my milk delivery. Because of the notification tool, half of the company then knew about this and was talking to me about it.

I know that when you put things on the Internet, it is available for the world to see. But it kind of freaked me out that my company is watching me and what I say, even outside of work. Same thing happened to me when I blogged about one of my favorite games. The Creator of the game then put a comment on my blog. I guess this was a good reminder that when you blog, the world is reading.

Had a fun weekend. I hooked up my stereo system, took a tour of the new Draper temple, got a haircut for me and my son, had a family birthday party at golden corral, had 3 families stop by for a visit, spoke in priesthood during church, was asked to speak in church next week, started my new calling of disaster preparedness specialist, cooked a full turkey dinner, hosted the Herrera family on Sunday evening and found time to watch that last 7 minutes of the Superbowl.

I need a vacation.

Theft & car problems

Yesterday Jen was feeling under the weather so I stayed home during the morning to help out. Since I was home I decided to make a nice breakfast for the family. I had ordered a bunch of stuff for my Winder Farms delivery, which included donuts and thick sliced honey cured bacon. (Very yummy.) But when I collected my delivery, I found that the donuts and bacon was missing. I knew my driver is a very effective driver and normally does not miss items on my delivery. I later found out that 2 kids run through our neighborhood on our delivery day and look for homes with Winder coolers on their porch. Which they then use to collect their food.

As a customer and an employee of the company. I felt very angry over the theft. The driver told me that he has lost over 20 customers because of the theft. With the economy that way it is, our company is trying everything to survive, just like everyone else is. Having someone steal from our customers causing them to cancel their service is very detrimental to our company and to me. It is bad enough that these kids steal from one person, but to steal from multiple people greatly increases our troubles.

In the afternoon I got into my car to go to work for the remainder of the day. But my car would not start. That made life even more interesting. Since we are new to the neighborhood, I have no idea where car repair places are and which ones are the good ones. I found one and with Progressive's help, got my car towed to the shop and hopefully they can fix it without causing me to seek a bailout from the government.

Settled in

This weekend is dedicated to getting unpacked and settled in. We started in the kitchen where we unpacked all our dishes and then washed them all. Then we moved to the bathrooms and our closet. I really wanted to be able to park my car in the garage as I was sick of scraping my windows each morning while we lived at the apartment. So I spent Saturday afternoon by breaking downing boxes and clearing out any remaining items we had in the garage. Once we were done, it was time to put the kids down for a nap and to take a break ourselves. It feels good to get all these things done. But we still have a large amount of boxes in the basement and I need to figure out how to use the security system, the water softener and how to change the code for the garage door opener. Things are progressing and the more we get done, the more comfortable I feel in our new home.

Today I did something I was looking forward to since our offer was accepted on the home. I was able to use our jetted tub. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. The only problem was that our water heater is not big enough to fill the tub with hot water. But I will enjoy this part of our house very much. If we ever have guest, I will recommend they try it out.

This is not my actual tub, but it does have windows by it and a nice view.

It's finally over

A 10 month process has finally come to a close yesterday. We moved into our new home and I'm planning on staying for the next 20+ years. We closed last Thursday, had all the painting done Saturday-Monday. New carpet installed on Tuesday. Packing and cleaning of the apartment happened during this same time. We hired movers and moved in on Wednesday. Now we are all moved in.

We still have a lot of boxes all over the place and so will have a lot of unpacking to do. But to finally be at the end of our selling and buying process makes me feel wonderful and relieved. The home is great and as I walk around it, I still cannot believe that it is ours. We have so much space now. Our sectional sofa even fits in our family room.

After we get unpacked and settled in. We will certainly have some events so we can have friends and family come see where we live. We want everyone one to know where we live so they can come visit whenever they are in the area. Even though we now live in a completely different area of the valley. We want to keep all our friends.

I HATE BUYING A HOME!!!

So we closed on our home on Monday and when we did they asked us to sign all the documents with our full names, including our middle names. We did so and then waited for everything to be final so we could then clean up the home and move in. But then yesterday we learned that our lending company had set up all their documents with just our first and last names but not the middle names. Since we signed with our middle names, they would not accept those documents.

Furious beyond words, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of a blame fest as the title company and our lender spent half of the day blaming each other for the error, instead of working on the solution. Thankfully our Realtor was able to get both of them to stop blaming and start working on fixing the issue. Now we are told that we can re-sign today and then if the planets align just right. We will have possession of our new home on Friday.

If we are fortunate to get possession of our home on Friday, we will then start the painters on Saturday, carpet on Tuesday and then moving in on Wednesday.

I cannot believe all the problems we have experienced with buying any home. When we bought our first home we had to go close 3 times before they finally got it right. Why are we always the ones to get the horror experiences with buying homes. When we get done with this home purchase, I will not be doing this again for at least 20 years. (I hope)

Moving, my 325,961st favorite thing to do.

Today was settlement day, meaning that we sign our name over and over again. But even though we now own the home, we cannot take possession of the home until the sale is recorded with the county. Since we are dealing with a bank that is based in Pennsylvania, we should not expect to receive the keys to the home until Thursday. Because we want to get new carpet and painting done before we move in, we will have to delay our moving until Tuesday the 20th. So if you do not have to work on Tuesday and do not want to be bored to death watching the inauguration on the television( and will be the only thing on the TV.) Then you are welcome to come give us a hand.

To anyone who was planning to help us move on Saturday. Thank you very much. But you can now find some other activity to occupy your Saturday, unless you want to help us clean our new place. But that does not sound to fun does it? I had promised tickets to the Utes basketball game that Saturday to a few people and would still like to give it to them. So please come enjoy the game on me.

Moving on up

Our closing date is now officially set for this coming Monday the 12th. But because we are buying a repo, we cannot take possession of the home until all the money has been transferred. So we expect to have possession of our new home on Wednesday the 14th. Then we will try like crazy to get all the walls repainted, new carpet installed, everything cleaned, the driveway snowblowed so our pod can be delivered and a new stove and dishwasher installed. Hopefully all this can be done by Saturday morning as we will then move into the home on Saturday the 17th.

I was hoping to take possession of the home earlier so we could have more time to get everything done. But I am so anxious to get into our new home and I've decided to move in on Saturday the 17th whether the home is ready or not. So if your available and/or bored this next Saturday. We would love to have your help in moving. The move will not be very hard. We will already have the majority of our stuff there waiting to unload in our pod. The only things we need to load up will be what is in our apartment, which is not much. So I anticipate that we will be all moved in by 1pm if not sooner.

If you need an incentive to give us a hand, I won 4 tickets to the Utah Utes basket ball game for that Saturday at 4pm. The first 4 volunteers to let me know they can give me a hand have first pick of the tickets. If that does not work, then I will try to give you a guilt trip until you agree to help. :)

Hope to see you on Saturday the 17th.

New home keeps you busy

We have our officially accepted offer on our new home and are now going through all the hoops and red tape before we can close. Yesterday we made our own inspection and had a professional come inspect our new home. I was nervous as we are getting this home for a really good price and so was worried that something was wrong with it. But our home inspector could not find any major issues, which was wonderful news.


Now we are trying to see how much it would cost for new carpet and a new paint job, plus some new appliances. With the amount of snow on the ground at this part of town. I have decided that I will need to purchase a snow blower. Having a RV pad as well as a driveway also encourages this purchase.



We are excited as can be and just can't wait until we are moved in. We are projecting a move in date of Saturday January 17th. We will send an official invitation when the date is firmly set. But we hope many of our friends and family will be available to help. The move will be very simple. We only have an apartment to pack up and load up. The rest will be in a Pod that we will have delivered just before move in time. With the help of the Pod people, our move will be much easier.

A snowed in Christmas

Christmas has come again and like many parents, Jen & I spent much of Christmas Even wrapping presents and getting ready for "Santa's" visit. Karen was so excited for Christmas that she came out of her room a few times while we were preparing and we had to quickly get her back in bed to preserve the surprise. On Christmas morning we were woken by a very excited Karen who informed us that Santa had came and she wanted to start opening presents. After some persuasion from Karen, we all got up and began Christmas morning. An hour later the kids had more toys that they could play with, Jen had a new computer game and dagger. And I got the 20th anniversary box set for MST3K and a really cool UofU shirt.

Now we are spending the day playing with our new toys and watching "A Christmas Story" on TV. We were planning on going to my parents house to enjoy the day with them. But we have a large storm hitting the state today and the roads look terrible. I had been checking the Internet to see if the weather would let up so we could travel, but I don't think it will be worth the risk. So we are enjoying a snowed in Christmas. But seeing the kids enjoy their new toys makes this a very happy and enjoyable time.

See ya next year

Were going home...once we find it

Our exhausted search from the new Stark family home has taken us all over the valley and into every kind of neighborhood out there. We have seen most every type of rambler home that has been built. We finally feel like we had found some homes that we could enjoy and on Wednesday we put a bid on 2 of them. But right after we made those two offers, Jen found the best house we had ever seen . We fell in love and put an offer on that home too. So we now have 3 offers made on 3 different homes. We are optimistic that by the end of the year we will have one of them.

With these offers I finally feel like we are progressing in our home search and we can now sit back, relax and try to enjoy the holidays. We should receive within 3 days a response for 2 of our offers. Until then we will wrap presents, watch Holiday movies and treat ourselves to hot chocolate and scones from Winder Farms.

The physical toll for searching for our home has been exhausting. Poor Michael came down with a fever and I'm sure us running from house to house has not been helpful. But we have agreed to suspend our house search for the holidays. We surly could use the break.

Its life jim....but not as we know it

Not much to say about this week. Disappointment on the housing search. Interest rates took a dive around Thanksgiving which got us really excited as we could now afford more and so increased the price range in our housing search. But we have yet to find that house that screams out at us. We have a bid on a short sell, but the bank seems to think that there is no decline in housing prices and so is hesitant to sell us the home for a price lower than what they think it will get. So we continue to enjoy the comforts of our apartment and hope that our house will show up soon. I am sure it will, but the waiting is the hardest part.

I am looking forward to all the Christmas activities we have planned. Looking at the lights at the zoo, scones at Winder Farms, choir concert by my mother, ward Christmas party and the main holiday itself is always fun. I really should start on my shopping.

Jen & mine anniversary will be next week and I've got something special planned. Last year Jen surprised me by taking me to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. We had a lot of fun and a nice break from being parents. This year I am surprising Jen. It will not be a cool as what she did for us last year, but I am excited for it and we will have fun.

Wild and wacky weekend

This was one of those weekends where it would be easier to tell you what did not happen, rather than what did. All week we were boxing up our home to move it on Saturday. But on Friday we were able to take some time out for ourselves. Jen & I dropped the kids off at my parents and then were treated to the new "Twilight" movie by my financial planner. It was nice to put the move out of our minds and just enjoy an evening together. The movie was entertaining and as someone who has not read the books, I would recommend the movie to others. There was some fun action in the movie, along with the romance. My only complaint was that the final climatic scene was not long enough. But it was still fun.

Saturday we woke up and began loading up our pod and moving van. (Our Realtor had a moving van for his clients, for only $17 a day. Nice deal huh?) Because we had packed everything up before the move, we were able to load both the pod and van. Travel to our apartment and get everything unloaded within 3 1/2 hours. Having members of my ward and my very helpful family from both sides was the secret to our moving success. Plus one of my pet peeves is to go help someone move and show up with nothing boxed up and nothing ready. So we were determined that this would not happen with us. So we were all moved in by 12:30 and are enjoying the pleasures of living in a small apartment.

We were done with our move in time to enjoy a pleasant evening in front of Adam Meyer's big screen TV during the hours of 4-8pm. Thankfully the TV was on the station that showed the Utah game and Jen & I thoroughly enjoyed it. Adam was not as excited with the outcome as we were. But to see our Utes repeat as undefeated BCS busters was the best thing for our busy and stressful weekend. The high I was on after the game did not stop for hours. It will be nice to not have to sing the BYU fight song due to losing a bet I make with co-workers every year. It will be nice to hear them try to put their singing voices to good use. My advice to them concerning singing, "its a quest for perfection." :)

So that's the weekend. Looking forward to thanksgiving with the family and eventually moving into our permanent home.

Huray its boxing day

This week has been dominated by packing and loading tons of moving boxes. We've been going through everything we own to see which box it will go in and if it goes into storage or with us to our apartment. I'm sure everyone is amazed by how much stuff they accumulate during their lives and I have been realizing that lately. We have everything from unused flower seeds to letters from old boyfriends. (Well from Jen's old boyfriends, I don't have any old or even current boyfriends.) Its a good thing we are going to end up in a larger home, so that we can have room for our accumulated stuff we will be getting more of during our life.

We are getting closer to moving day and things are finally progressing well. We are getting many things boxed up. The people who are buying our home have started to install a fence today and did their final walk through. They look like a nice couple with a 4 month old baby. Tomorrow we will close on the selling of our house and then we will be renters once again. It will be strange to go back to living in a small apartment and we will be motivated to get back into a home as soon as we can. But we will be even more motivated to be completed with our move in time to enjoy the Utah BYU game this Saturday.

Moving

So we learned that the home we are trying to buy could take up to 6 weeks and possibly more to purchase. We need to be out of our current home by Saturday and so need a place to live in the mean time. Thanks to Jen's sister letting us know about an apartment complex that allows 2 month leases. We have found a place to live. Ironically it is very close to our first apartment we had when we got married.

So this Saturday we will be moving out of our home and into a small 2 bedroom apartment. Many people have emailed or listed comments on our blogs that they would love to help. If you are still interested in helping, we will be moving this Saturday at 9am starting at our current home on Collins Camp Court. Let me know if you would like to come give us a hand and we will provide details.

Well, life is taking a strange turn but we are rolling with it. It will be a bummer to not be in our new home in time for Christmas. But once we are in our new home, it will all be worth it.

Never a dull moment in the world of home buying

This month has been anything but boring. We found a home that we liked and could live in for some time. It is much larger than our current house and has a finished yard. The basement is not finished but it could be fun to work on my own house, building it up and making it my own. So we put a bid on it, starting low so we could have room to negotiate. But the home is a short sell and so expected to wait a few days to hear from someone in a bank office to accept, reject or counter offer. Instead we heard very quickly from the seller's Realtor.

He reported that the bank was sick of the home and wanted it to go away. So they were ready and prepared to foreclose and send the home to auction, just to see it disappear. But with us showing up with an offer was a ray of hope for the people who owned the home, and hoped to avoid foreclosure, and for the realtor who wanted to sell the home and collect a commission. The Realtor called the bank and fought for a chance for our offer to be reviewed and accepted. The bank gave in and stated that if our offer could be raised to a specific amount and would be presented within a hour. They would accept it and allow the sale to go through. They would also allow the home to close within 3 weeks, a rare thing with short sells.

So we jumped at this chance, revised our offer within the hour and got it in on time. We have not heard back officially from the bank to confirm that the offer has been accepted, but are very optimistic that it will and that within 3 weeks, we shall be in our new home.

Very ironically we also heard from the owners of a home we bid on last week. They have a very nice home that we both liked and would have enjoyed very much. They were asking for 225000 for the home and just would not come down a single penny. So we could not reach an agreement and we had moved on and bid on the house across the street (as described above.) Suddenly they approached us again asking if we were still interested in the home. I should not feel competitive in this home buying process, but it did feel kind of good to tell these good people that we were thankful for their interest in our past offers. But we were in the process of pursing the home next to them and so could not pursue their home anymore. So because they were unwilling to negotiate, they missed their chance with a good and qualified buyer. I guess my imperfections are now clear for the world to see within this blog.

Despite all our efforts to find our new home, we are still without temporary housing. A apartment that our Realtor offered us may not be ready when we move this next Saturday. But we will finalize that on Monday (Hopefully) If not, we could always live in a tent in the park.

Still homeless

So last week we dedicated all our efforts to finding a new home. We found a wonderful home that we both loved and stretched our budget to the max and offered all we have for the new home. After a very nervous and long Sunday, we finally heard back that they did not want to accept anything less than their asking price. This remained out of our financial reach and so we are back to house hunting.

I was completely baffled that someone would put their house on today's market and expect to get their full asking price. The home is a very good home and someone may in fact give them the price they are asking. But they should expect people to want to negotiate a price of a home and so they should have priced their home higher that what they wanted so they could meet at that price. But just because that is the way I sold my home does not mean that other need to do that too.

So we need to find temporary housing extremely quickly. So far, all my efforts to rent a home for the remainder of the year has been fruitless. But we are not discouraged and will find something before the end of this week.

When we finally end up in our new home, I will never move again. Or at least not for 15-20 years.

Change is coming

Well our family is going to see some significant change and not just from the political side. We have been trying to sell our house since July and had not had much luck with it. So at the end of October we decided to take our home off the market and just stay in our current home. But out of the blue, an offer came in for our home. (Literally at the last second.) The offer was too low, but we thought it would not hurt to counter with an offer we could accept. So we did and it was accepted.

So we have sold our house and do not even have a new house picked out yet. We had given up looking for a new house and so are completely unprepared. On top of that, we need to be moved out of our current house the weekend before thanksgiving. So the remainder of the year is going to be very busy for us. We will need to move into temporary housing and then find our new house and move into it. I am not a fan of moving and so having to move twice is not fun. But if we end up in a house that we will stay in for the next 10-20 years. I will consider this a successful endeavor.

These little wonders, these twist of fate

I had a very unique experience last night. There is a song I enjoy by Rob Thomas called "Little Wonders" The song helps me appreciate my wife and family and recognize the unexpected moments I have with them that bring joy and happiness in my life. Last night was one of those moments that this song will remind me of.

I had heard that the song Little Wonders was in the Disney movie "Meet the Robinsons." So we borrowed the movie from my brother and watched it together as a family last night. If you have not seen the movie, I recommend it. It is about a orphan boy who, by use of a time travel machine, goes into the future and meets his family and sees that he turns from a orphan to a man with a large and happy family.

Something about this movie had an effect on my subconscious. Because near the end of the movie, both my kids suddenly wanted to have a bowl of cereal. So I run into the kitchen and very quickly I grab two bowls, some spoons, the cereal and put two stools at the table and begin serving the cereal.

Then very suddenly it hit me. It was like I had taken my 12 year old self, picked him up and just dropped him into my now 33 year body. And I was just realizing that I was a husband and father of 2 children who were now anxiously looking at me, expecting cereal. As I stood there, holding a bag of cereal in my hand, all I could do was think "How did I get here?" It was not that I was in a negative place, I just suddenly felt like I had no idea how I got to this point in my life.

I guess my epiphany caused me to make a verbal sound of shock, which got Jen suddenly very scared, thinking something was wrong. She began urgently asking what was wrong and I very sheepishly had to respond. "Have you ever found yourself somewhere and cannot remember or figure out how you got there." After I explained to her how I was feeling, she could not stop laughing. But for me, it just suddenly felt so real. But having gone through that feeling, I must admit that I do feel happy with where I am now and I think that if my 12 year old self did see where my 33 year old self is. That I would be happy.

We spent the remainder of the evening watching the rest of the show and then playing together. Our son surprised us by picking up a wrapper off the floor with his toes. Pretty impressive for a 2 year old. He then danced around while singing "shake your body." Karen also joined in the dancing and pretended to get away from her tickling mother, but she loves to get caught by any tickling parent. This was an evening that I will think back on fondly, as a time Jen & I enjoyed our toddler children and the happiness and laughs they brought us.

We also had a busy weekend with Halloween activities. We had a Halloween party with our ward on Friday, which included a trunk or treat. My brother Monte and his family joined us and then we joined them for their ward Halloween party on Saturday. Our kids really clean up in the candy department. And they still have Halloween this Friday.

Been a busy weekend. But we sure had a lot of fun with our little wonders and the twists of fates we experienced.

I hate being sick

Wednesday I woke up feeling strange. Went to work and tried to do all my normal things, but by noon it became clear that something was wrong. So I came home and tried to sleep. By the evening I was feeling even more sick and most of the pain was in my intestines. Somehow I got a bad case of diarrhea and have been suffering from it the whole week. I think I may have gotten the parasite that went around to all the pools last summer. I swim a mile each week and so have plenty of opportunity to catch anything that would be found in a public pool.

It was a total bummer too as I wanted to do a few things this week and could not. I wanted to help a sister in law move, mow the rain forest in my from yard and help pass out door hangers for a candidate I would love to see elected. But all will have to wait for future days.

At least my football team and fantasy football teams were victorious this weekend. My Utes are now leading the BCS pack of the non-BCS schools. If they keep winning they will go to a BCS bowl. If they lose one game, I will not feel terrible about it. Their season is already a great success.

John Adams & New Carpet

It has been a full week since I have been able to post a blog. The reasons are football, carpet & John Adams. As many of you know, I am an avid fan of history. So when the HBO mini series on John Adams came out on DVD, I placed a hold on it at the library and waited. My waiting finally paid off this last week and I had 7 days to watch all 7 episodes and extra content. That was difficult as we were having new carpet installed this week at the same time. More on that later.

John Adams lived in one of the most changing times of the world, and he was right in the middle of all the change. He was the loudest voice for Independence, was sent to European nations to solicit support for the revolution, was the first American to stand before the King of England after the war and request a resumption of relations, served as our first vice-president and the second president before falling victim to party politics.

His story is truly amazing to hear. While president, he was faced of resisting the popular opinion of his people and his party to go to war with France, a war he knew would destroy their young country. He fought for and obtained peace with France, even through it cost him re-election. If there is ever an example of a politician who did not follow traditional party politics, John Adams is the one. But we will never see another John Adams, because if there was. Someone like Thomas Jefferson & Alexander Hamilton would be right there to play party politics and seize power from Adams.

I enjoyed the show and loved the close friendship that John & Abigail Adams shared. When Abigail died and John was left alone, I found myself very sad and very thankful for my wonderful wife and friend. I had to share with her my love and that if any of us had to die before the other, I would want it to be her so that she would not have to be the one left behind and all alone. That got me brownie points with my wife. :)

We had been looking for new carpet and finally found it on Monday. Tuesday-Thursday was spent moving every piece of furniture we have while we received the new carpet. It was hard work, but certainly worth it. It feels like we have a whole new house and we feel more comfortable with staying in our home if we are unable to sell this year.

Because of all the work moving furniture in our house during the week, I looked forward to a relaxing weekend. I almost got it. I took our kids to the zoo and then ended up helping a neighbor move. I greatly enjoyed watching the Utes defeat the Aggies, as well as seeing all but 1 MWC team win their games this weekend. Things are looking great for the MWC and the Utah BYU game this year could be the biggest ever.