Transition - Leaving Texas

Time to dust off the blog, We are still alive and well! The past three months our lives have been a blur. While at the time it seemed like chaos ruled and logic was lost, we now are settling down to realize the great blessings and mercy the Lord has extended to our family through the process and that we are indeed where he would have us be (well almost, we missed the mark by five miles but thats another story!)

I typically don't back-blog much but I'll take a minute to touch on some major events.

First and foremost Jared graduated from the University of Colorado with his Masters in Engineering Management – Space Operations in May. What should have been a celebrated momentous occasion simply passed by with a sign of relief as we madly cleaned and fixed in preparation to place the house on the market. We are so proud of him, it was a long three years for the whole family but he balanced it all well.

With the move came our biggest concern, selling our home in League City. It was our first house, we moved in shortly before Erin turned two and soon it became home to a growing family. It was beautiful, and backed up to the park and we were surrounded by friendly neighbors who were wonderful. For five years I engineered my own soil, finally last spring I had a patch of fertile land that would actually yield produce.

We placed our house on the market Memorial Day weekend, ours would compete at the time with scores of homes with similar square footage and build. The local housing market was flooded because of the massive layoffs associated the shuttle program. While our house was in a good neighborhood and we kept it up, there was over a year of inventory on the market and could easily be a year or more before we sold simply because of the volume and economy.

Jared was swamped with interviews and work during the spring and I spent night and day prepping the house for sale. I am thankful for good friends who scrubbed walls unknown to people taller than 3'. The amount of showings was dismal, by the third week of June we only had three showings. Much to my surprise our Realtor called and said an offer had been submitted. The offer was acceptable, almost asking price, but the buyer was asking for $6,000 cash to close. Ouch, but after running the numbers what it would take to keep the house vacant, plus the concern of shifting foundation with the drought (which by the way I had nightmares all summer during the closing process that it shifted right before closing and the buyer backed out :) we accepted.

July was plain crazy. I am thankful for an excellent Realtor (Jeff Bulman for all your locals getting ready to put you house on the market) who kept everyone of their feet (much to the loan officers dismay at times). Their email banter back and forth provided entertainment while we were in a completely stressed state. The buyer had financing issues, and after a few weeks where we suspected the deal would fold, they worked it out. Long story but the market was falling so fast our house didn't even appraise for the buyers offer. That became a breach of our relocation contract - one messy chaotic situation and for several days we had no idea who actually owned our house or if we had closed. In late July we received our equity check in the mail...which made us assume we SOLD! It was one of the many miracles on this journey. For reasons still unknown to us, we were able to sell and are so very grateful that we could start in Iowa being free of our obligations in Texas.

In the mean time Jared got tickets to see the STS-135 launch from the six mile mark at Kennedy Space Center. While we didn't have the time to make an impromptu visit to Florida, this was the LAST shuttle launch. I'll post separately about it, but it was epic (and emotional)!

Jared dropped me off in Louisiana for YW camp on the way home from the launch. I served as the assistant stake camp director this year, which was a perfect closure to my time in League City and after serving in the ward YW presidency for 6 ½ years (which will probably be another post).

I returned home from camp on a Saturday physically exhausted from two weeks of travel and spiritually uplifted – just in time, the movers came on Wednesday. Monday friends threw one Texas sized good bye party for us. They had a corn roast in the park, despite the heat it was a warm sendoff and much needed closure as we left great friends who have doubled as family
over the past seven years. We will miss them all dearly.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent packing in 100+ degree heat. Thursday and Friday night we stayed with good friends, enjoying some final time together before the next adventure of life would turn its pages for both families the following week. We waved goodbye to Sam Houston as we left Houston one last time... we left home to head home.