An Abbreviated Version:

I could spend days going over the past few weeks at our home, but I've decided to give a brief synopsis of events instead. Here it goes:

The chaos began August 28th. We bought a home and closed at 9am that morning. After closing, we left for Idaho. Joe had a couple accounts up there and I was going to pick up some of our food storage my parents had been housing for us because we didn't have room in our home for it.

We left Joe's dad, the twins, a niece and a nephew at our place and Joe's mom, sister, brother-in-law and two other nephews flew in that night.

I loved this picture of Joe and Jack on the dirt bike...Quin was trying to keep up with them.

We loaded up the trailer in Idaho with Joe's dirt bike and the food storage and headed back to UT in a three vehicle caravan Friday evening.

Saturday was spent moving all of our stuff out of the storage unit and all of our food storage up to the new house. We also spent a good deal of the day cleaning the house...it hadn't been lived in for over a year and had seen a great deal of neglect.

The rest of the next week was spent finalizing Will's placement with the Ferrins, getting the twins up to Rexburg for the start of school, correlating family activities and get togethers, etc... We were very lucky to have Joe's family in town because they did a tremendous amount of cleaning and fixing up at the new house.

We put our home on the market Septmeber 3rd and have done a great deal of 'clean up' on our home each day to keep it ready for the sporatic showings that seem to get scheduled at the most inopportune moments. Each day I load up a few more boxes and bring them up to the new house to help eliminate the clutter and keep things moving.

Since the departure of my in-laws last week, I've been spending most of my time between the two houses. I leave early and spend all morning cleaning at the new house, just to come home in the evening and clean our other house...it's a vicious cycle. I hate it.

We've had several people come through the house and that's encouraging, and last night we received our first offer. Hopefully we're able to come to an agreement with them. We decided to sell the house about 30 thousand under its appraised value because of the market. We need to be out within the next couple of months and we're a bit worried it won't sell...there are no guarantees in this business.

Ben and I have been able to get one of the bedrooms finished and I've finished sorting one of the storage rooms. We painted four closets and I finished preping four others. I had to remove the wallpaper in two bedrooms (yuck...I hate wallpaper) so they are now ready to be painted. I finished taping them off yesterday and I'm hoping we'll have them all painted tomorrow. Once the top two floors are finished we'll move up there, hopefully that will correspond nicely with the sell of this home, although there are again no guarantees, but I'm hopeful.

I was able to go out on my birthday, I'm a whopping 28 now, and I got lunch and a pedicure with my sister, sister-in-law and a few friends. It was very nice and relaxing and I'm grateful for the chance I had to enjoy their company and a leisure Saturday afternoon! It was a great change of pace!

I am competing in a Karate Tournament this Saturday. I'm competing in the 18-35 yr old womens beginner's category as an Orange Belt. I'll be preforming a black belt form called, Choong Moo. I'm a bit nervous because I've never competed in anything outside of Jr. High track and field...lame, I know. I am excited though and I am hoping to do a good job. I've been doing a LOT of practicing and stretching (there are a lot of kicks and I'm not as limber as I once was) and I'm hoping it pays off! I'll keep you posted.

Anyhow, life has been especially hectic the past few weeks, but we are excited about the upcoming changes and hopefully I'll be better about keeping you all up to date on any new adventures!