Two Years in the Making

Steph here.

About 2 yrs and 1 month ago, we put our condo on the real estate market. This was RIGHT when we found out we were pregnant in Sept. of 2007. We knew my great-aunt was probably never going to be able to come back to her home and that my family would be happy to sell her home to us.

A month later, we found out that we were indeed going to be having twins. We immediately lowered the asking price of the condo by several thousand dollars, feeling more pressure to get in to the new house before the twins came. Especially seeing how most twin pregnancies do not go full term.

By late March of 2008, we had still not sold the condo but decided to move in to the new house. I was 32 weeks pregnant with the twins.

20 months after putting the condo up on the market, we finally closed on the sale of it. We did lose some money on it but at least walked away with a check in our name (as opposed to stories we've heard from our realtor of people OWING up to $30,000 at the SALE of their homes! Can you imagine? SO sad...). We applied for our loan very soon after that.

Well, almost 4 months after that we have finally closed on our home tonight! We are so very excited to finally be homeowners again and so happy that my family (my maternal side of the family - my great-aunt passed away the summer of 2008 so the house was in my uncle's name) will finally be able to move on with the closure process of Bobbie's death.

We went through a lot to get here and it was pretty painful at times. But seriously? We own a GREAT home that is PERFECT for our family. Most importantly, and really the basis of the reason for us wanting to buy the house, we are in a GREAT GREAT school district. We feel SO lucky and blessed.

Meanwhile, I also start in to my new teaching position next week. I am working for a very small company that contracts out to various preschools (mostly Montessori) in the Greater Cincinnati area to teach Spanish. I will teach at 6 or 7 different schools. I don't have to create any lessons, grade any papers, deal with many or any parents! Phew. At this point in the life of my family, this is all wonderful. It's a HUGE paycut and we are trying to adjust to that, but the new schedule is improved over the new one.

I don't know if I will want to teach preschool for the rest of my career, although who knows? I could change my mind on that! But again, feel SO lucky to have come upon this job. The owner of the company is GREAT as a boss and really, really knows her stuff in terms of teaching Spanish to young, young children!

I guess that's it for now. Matt is really in to watching Ken Burns' wonderful National Parks documentary this week (see the widget above) which began Sun. night and runs through Fri. night. I am tagging clothing for the Twins' Club semi-annual sale which takes place this Sat. I'm praying for a good turnout and a good amount of income for me and for the club!

Ok, I'll sign off for real now! Steph

PS -- We did the premiere of the "big trip movie" for Matt's parents this past weekend and we think it went really, really well! Matt is truly a genious at making these movies!