Tons going on!
Wow, I wish I would have made more posts because now there seems to be a cornucopia of events to catch up on.
Probably the largest is our upcoming move. 2 months ago we spoke with our landlord about the possibility of working out a rent-to-own scenario to buy our current place. Granted, it's to small and neglected but the area's nice and the property values continue to go up. BUT, that changed when he committed suicide.
Yup. Committed suicide.
Apparently, he was going through a divorce, and was living out of his car while his would be ex-wife left their three children oldest 10 or 11 to babysit her younger sister and 8 month old brother. So he moved his retirement and savings into his brother's name, placed their home and our place in a trust with his father as the trustee, then shot himself.
If that isn't a horrible enough story, his father happens to be a doctor. Who works in the emergency room. And was working the day Kory committed suicide. At the hospital the ambulance took him to. And pronounced his own son dead.
Heart wrenching.
But this left us in an awkward situation, Dad wasn't interested in being a landlord but didn't want to not rent to us because Kory would speak highly of us. We weren't interested in trying to buy the place under these circumstances because we were convinced that the ex would scratch for everything she could possibly get and we would rather avoid that.
So the search began. Then as luck would have it, a twin home four houses down from us on the opposite side of the street was for rent. It would be perfect! 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and an unfinished basement. Helen went and looked at it, and liked it, we put in our app and waited. And waited. And waited. They were happy with our references and us. The landlords lived in the area and were familiar with the work that had put into our current place. BUT! We have 2 cats. And we were given a line something like "We'd like to meet with all the applicants". Which is a form of no. Eventually, we decided that we couldn't afford to wait and kept looking. Several home tours later, and nothing.
Then I found an ad in craigslist and sent an email. We went to look at it and Helen had already decided no. The ad was listed as a condo but mentioned having an upstairs and a downstairs so we were intrigued.
It had everything we were looking for except a garage. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, gas kitchen, fireplace, end unit overlooking a play area and the landlords were quite fine with us having cats. We snatched it. It was in the middle of utah county, in a city were we do a lot of teaching.
But let us take a moment to compare the move in costs:
Rent down the street: $1100
Deposit: $800
Pet Deposit: $1000
Move in: 1st & last months rent + deposits
Total move in: $4000
Townhouse in AF: $1000
Deposit: $800 over 4 months
Pet Deposit: $0
Move in: 1st month + 1/2 deposit
Total move in: $1200
Hmm.... what's the better deal? Hmmm... I wonder.
So, we're moving!
We actually have both places for the month of June, we felt it was better to get the place we liked while it was available rather than risk losing it.
On other news, Rian is doing great. He holds his head up, has started pushing himself up and has been cooing.
Ben's last day of 1st grade is today, Josh's last day of preschool was last Friday. We have short video clips of their end of the school festivities that we'll be posting shortly. Morgan is almost totally potty trained! Every time she goes to the potty, she gets starbursts depending on if she goes #1 or #2.
I've been working both jobs relatively consistently. My night job has been difficult, mostly because it's so easy and I've been focused on selling instruments and such during the day.
Helen's Mother's day gift was to be a participant in an English Horn Masterclass that happens annually at BYU. She's wanted to go the past couple of years but it's never been in the budget or she didn't have an instrument. But this year, with both jobs and the tax return, I felt it was time. Plus, I'm always looking for things that are for her. I don't like getting her gifts that aren't really for her. A toaster for instance or the carpet cleaner. No one can use this gift but her. And we were able to use the symphony's instrument.
When I was thinking of enrolling her in the masterclass, there were 4 slots available. Over 2 months before the event. I could wait.... I'm sure I could. But I played it safe and booked it. Then a week later, sure enough the remaining slots were gone! Hooray for not dragging my feet!
As for me, I've been pseudo promoted in the orchestra to principal clarinet. The current/former principal has been on a downward trend lately and is struggling with it so is stepping aside. I was able to play in the pit for My Fair Lady and got my name on a couple of gig lists. It was fairly stressful. Imagine being given music that is two-thirds solo/melody that you have seen for less than 2 hours and perform the concert. Oh yeah, lets make it difficult by making the music hard and throw in some cuts and such. And... good luck, don't suck.
Thankfully, I didn't suck. Yipee! And hopefully I'll get calls for gigs from it.
Well, that about sums up the past 6 weeks or so.
There will be videos and pictures up shortly of the kids!
Probably the largest is our upcoming move. 2 months ago we spoke with our landlord about the possibility of working out a rent-to-own scenario to buy our current place. Granted, it's to small and neglected but the area's nice and the property values continue to go up. BUT, that changed when he committed suicide.
Yup. Committed suicide.
Apparently, he was going through a divorce, and was living out of his car while his would be ex-wife left their three children oldest 10 or 11 to babysit her younger sister and 8 month old brother. So he moved his retirement and savings into his brother's name, placed their home and our place in a trust with his father as the trustee, then shot himself.
If that isn't a horrible enough story, his father happens to be a doctor. Who works in the emergency room. And was working the day Kory committed suicide. At the hospital the ambulance took him to. And pronounced his own son dead.
Heart wrenching.
But this left us in an awkward situation, Dad wasn't interested in being a landlord but didn't want to not rent to us because Kory would speak highly of us. We weren't interested in trying to buy the place under these circumstances because we were convinced that the ex would scratch for everything she could possibly get and we would rather avoid that.
So the search began. Then as luck would have it, a twin home four houses down from us on the opposite side of the street was for rent. It would be perfect! 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths and an unfinished basement. Helen went and looked at it, and liked it, we put in our app and waited. And waited. And waited. They were happy with our references and us. The landlords lived in the area and were familiar with the work that had put into our current place. BUT! We have 2 cats. And we were given a line something like "We'd like to meet with all the applicants". Which is a form of no. Eventually, we decided that we couldn't afford to wait and kept looking. Several home tours later, and nothing.
Then I found an ad in craigslist and sent an email. We went to look at it and Helen had already decided no. The ad was listed as a condo but mentioned having an upstairs and a downstairs so we were intrigued.
It had everything we were looking for except a garage. 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, gas kitchen, fireplace, end unit overlooking a play area and the landlords were quite fine with us having cats. We snatched it. It was in the middle of utah county, in a city were we do a lot of teaching.
But let us take a moment to compare the move in costs:
Rent down the street: $1100
Deposit: $800
Pet Deposit: $1000
Move in: 1st & last months rent + deposits
Total move in: $4000
Townhouse in AF: $1000
Deposit: $800 over 4 months
Pet Deposit: $0
Move in: 1st month + 1/2 deposit
Total move in: $1200
Hmm.... what's the better deal? Hmmm... I wonder.
So, we're moving!
We actually have both places for the month of June, we felt it was better to get the place we liked while it was available rather than risk losing it.
On other news, Rian is doing great. He holds his head up, has started pushing himself up and has been cooing.
Ben's last day of 1st grade is today, Josh's last day of preschool was last Friday. We have short video clips of their end of the school festivities that we'll be posting shortly. Morgan is almost totally potty trained! Every time she goes to the potty, she gets starbursts depending on if she goes #1 or #2.
I've been working both jobs relatively consistently. My night job has been difficult, mostly because it's so easy and I've been focused on selling instruments and such during the day.
Helen's Mother's day gift was to be a participant in an English Horn Masterclass that happens annually at BYU. She's wanted to go the past couple of years but it's never been in the budget or she didn't have an instrument. But this year, with both jobs and the tax return, I felt it was time. Plus, I'm always looking for things that are for her. I don't like getting her gifts that aren't really for her. A toaster for instance or the carpet cleaner. No one can use this gift but her. And we were able to use the symphony's instrument.
When I was thinking of enrolling her in the masterclass, there were 4 slots available. Over 2 months before the event. I could wait.... I'm sure I could. But I played it safe and booked it. Then a week later, sure enough the remaining slots were gone! Hooray for not dragging my feet!
As for me, I've been pseudo promoted in the orchestra to principal clarinet. The current/former principal has been on a downward trend lately and is struggling with it so is stepping aside. I was able to play in the pit for My Fair Lady and got my name on a couple of gig lists. It was fairly stressful. Imagine being given music that is two-thirds solo/melody that you have seen for less than 2 hours and perform the concert. Oh yeah, lets make it difficult by making the music hard and throw in some cuts and such. And... good luck, don't suck.
Thankfully, I didn't suck. Yipee! And hopefully I'll get calls for gigs from it.
Well, that about sums up the past 6 weeks or so.
There will be videos and pictures up shortly of the kids!
posted by Mike at Thursday, May 31, 2007
0 comments
