The Move

The big change that happened in our lives in 2009 was that we moved. We had been talking about maybe moving and getting a larger home for about a year but, with the housing market the way it is, it did not seem like it would happen anytime soon. I don't remember what made us change our minds, it all seems so sudden as I look back now but, we decided to just put our house on the market and see what happened.

We put our house on the market a few days before we left for our beach trip and had several showings while we were away. We had an offer 8 days after it was on the market which happened to be July 4th weekend. We were not prepared to get an offer that fast and had not really started looking for a new home yet ourselves. We had two months till we were supposed to close on our home and the next two months, basically the whole summer, we were consumed with finding a home. The real estate market was not anything like we expected. We thought as buyers we would have an easy time but that was not the case. The inventory of homes for sale was low and mostly filled with short sales and foreclosures. Short sales take a long time to finalize and often fall through and we did not have that much time and foreclosures can be great deals but are very competitive and our offers were no match for the investors who come with all cash. We made about 5 offers all which we were outbid or lost to an investor. When we reached the last few weeks in our home, we still did not have a house to go to and had not started packing yet(I think we were in denial). With about 20 days left, a house we had made a previous offer and were outbid came back on the market. This house was a foreclosure and needed a lot of work. It was a brand new home and no one had ever lived it in but had sat vacant for two years and was missing a lot of things-it had NO FLOORS at all on the entire bottom level-just concrete , no refrigerator or washer and dryer, no light fixtures, and no blinds or window coverings which meant we would have to put more money in it. I did not want this house at all but for some reason Rob really really wanted. When we lost it the first time, Rob was pretty upset about it but I was sooo relieved. Now that it was back on the market, Rob wanted to try for it again and I agreed because I was pretty panicked about having nowhere to go and I felt at least one of us would be happy. We submitted our same previously rejected offer and it was accepted but we could not close on it till a month after we closed on our house so we would be homeless for a month and while the kids were supposed to be starting school. Let's just say the next month and a half were quite traumatizing at least to my sanity. We still had not started packing but,luckily, Rob's parents came out and helped us pack up our stuff and we got finished in time.

Jack started school at the school the new house was zoned for and attended the first week and I drove him 20 minutes each way while we were still in our house.
Jack's first day of 1st grade


I dragged my feet to our house closing. The kids and I went up to Grandma's for 2 weeks because we were homeless. Rob stayed with my sister's family in Orlando. After 2 weeks, we did not want Jack to miss anymore school so Jack and I came back to Orlando and also stayed with my sister and left Callie and Hudson with Grandma. I then had to drive 35 minutes 4x a day to take Jack to and from school. We were supposed to close on the new house at the end of the first week but to make our live's more complicated the closing was delayed and I dragged my feet to the new house closing the following week. After we closed on the new house, Rob moved into the new house and Rob's dad came back to help with the worker's putting in the new floors, blinds, appliances etc that we scheduled immediately after closing. Grandma brought Hudson and Callie back and we continued to live at my sister's house. Finally, after 4 weeks of being homeless, the floors were down and Rob had the beds set up and we all moved in. A few weeks later, I enrolled Callie in Pre-K. Unpacking took a lot longer because Hudson kept me busy most of the day.

By Thanksgiving we had about 85% of our stuff unpacked. Despite not wanting this house, I do feel like it is home now and I am very happy that the whole move is over and we are settled once again. We are enjoying the space and have loved hosting my family at Thanksgiving and Christmas.