Time to Write Again

Yep, you guessed it. It's time to write again. We had a baby! But, this post is pre-baby. I've been meaning to write for a while, but life is...well, life! A lot of things have happened over the last few months. I should probably start a little while ago. We decided we needed a change, We weren't quite sure what it was, but we knew that we needed it for our family. We were growing out of our home, Paul was traveling a lot for work, we were expecting our 8th baby this summer, and we were unhappy with the school situation in our area. So, Paul started looking at other opportunities for work. We had some criteria. We wanted to be a little closer to family. We haven't had family close for a lengthy period of time and felt like we were missing out on some stuff. We needed more space. And, we needed better educational opportunities. The search began. Paul got a lot of interviewing opportunities. He flew to Denver, Kansas City, Dallas, and Oklahoma City. He had recruiters from all over sending emails. Most of the interviews ended with, "You have a lot of experience. But, you are overqualified for this position." We were a little disheartened, but we both knew that this was the time for change. He had applied for a job in Kansas City, one that he knew he was probably over qualified for, but that was the area we were really looking at. They wanted to set up an interview, but he had been traveling for work and things were busy. We were also getting ready to go visit Paul's parents in London. He decided (with some encouragement) to contact the company one more to see if he missed the opportunity to interview. They responded quickly and said they'd like him to fly there that Tuesday and interview. He would be coming home from a business trip to Alabama Sunday evening, and we would be leaving for London on Thursday. We decided to go for it! He flew out for the interview, got home, picked Grandma up from the airport, and packed for our trip. We had a wonderful time in London and are so grateful we had time together. Thank you, Grandma Maureen (Mom) for holding down the fort with our littles. A few days after we came home, the company said they would be sending an offer at the end of the week. So, the offer came and we thought about it for a while. We prayed a lot, had many discussions, went to the temple, sought advice from parents and close friends. We started the process knowing that we would be able to continue looking around and if another opportunity came that fit our family better, that we could pursue that. May was creeping upon us. We were getting our house ready to put on the market and had my brother's wedding to get to. The wedding was beautiful! We were able to see family for a short visit. We came home and met with realtors that the company sent. We got a list of things that we needed to prepare for. Instead of having to keep a home show-ready with 7 children and being almost 8 months pregnant, we decided that the best course of action was for me to take the kids to Utah as soon as we got the house ready and spend a few weeks up there, in between doctor's appointment. The house went on the market May 31st. I left that morning with the kids and drove to my parents' house. We were told that the house may take 30-90 days to sell. We were hoping for a quicker sell than that, but we were prepared for the long haul. Meanwhile, Paul's current company got wind of his offer, and at this point it was actually offers. We had received another offer from a company in Oklahoma City that we were seriously considering also. So, the company was ready to make a counter offer. But, we weren't really interested. We were ready to move, and Tucson wasn't offering the change we needed. Then, the company said they would move us to Dallas. It got a little more interesting. Dallas was a city on our list--great schools, closer to family, work opportunities. Prayer, fasting (on Paul's part), and going to the temple. No real answers came other than that the Lord trusts us with this decision and any of our options would bring benefits to our family. On June 3rd, I got a text from our realtor that we had a full-price offer on the house. The offer came in on Sunday, but she didn't want to bug us until Monday morning. we negotiated back and forth for a few days with the buyers before receiving two more offers that weren't quite as good. And then we took it! Now, we had to figure out where we were going to go and whether or not this baby was going to be born in Tucson or somewhere else. After much thought and discussion, we decided to stay in Tucson until the baby came and set the closing date for August 8, my due date was August 2. I decided to stay in Cedar City until the inspection on the house was done and some of the other walk-throughs and stuff were completed. We were home, we could breathe, but we had decisions to make. The official offer had come from the company and it was better than we were expecting. We struggled with the decision for a while--back and forth. We finally decided to take the offer for Dallas. Now, we needed to find a home. There was also a time crunch. I couldn't fly after 36 weeks. We planned on taking the kids back to Grandma's (thanks Mom). And fly out from Vegas to Dallas over the week of Fourth of July. We spent 4 days looking at over 25 homes. We looked at new builds, we looked at existing homes, and we looked at short term living. We spent a lot of time walking around houses, neighborhoods and the surrounding area. We narrowed things down to 4-5 homes. Narrowed it to 2-3 homes. And then settled on two. We made an offer on one. After little negotiation, we were under contract! We went back home knowing we probably had a house in Texas, our home in Sahuarita would hopefully close, and we had to get a baby here!