First of all there was a lapse in my blogging because my laptop died. I went without a laptop from January until my birthday 10 days ago when I received a new laptop from my husband and kids!
So now I can chronicle all the changes which have been going on in our lives. Our top story is that we have moved to Utah! I truly thought it would never happen. Chuck and I have been talking about moving to Utah, specifically Park City for about 8 years.
During most of those years the state of Utah was in Chuck's district and he could have managed it just as easily from Utah as he did from Washington as long as he was in commute distance to a major airport, which obviously SLC has.
We chose Park City because after living in Western Washington for 30 years among the trees and lush greenery we couldn't bear to move to a desert. Park City was within commuting distance year round, was high enough in elevation to give us the evergreen trees we sought, not just the aspens so we would have greenery all year, is always 13 degrees cooler than SLC, and doesn't deal with the smog/inversion layer, or traffic of the valley.
Best of all, it would put me 8 hours closer to my grandkids!
Chuck kept trying to get his company to relocate us, but they said no. It was ok if we wanted to live there, but moving would be on our dime. We knew it would be expensive to move so we just kept waiting, hoping they would change their mind. Then the company realigned districts and removed Utah from the Northwest District to the Southwest District, which meant there was no hope of moving while Chuck remained manager of the NW District.
After every attempt to convince the company to move us failed, we would decide to be happy where we were and update or remodel something in our Bellevue home. Bit, by bit, we had changed every single room in our home and the front yard, back yard, even put in a new driveway, until there was nothing left to remodel but the kitchen. Finally we tackled that, and we finished all except the backsplash tile.
When we were at the point where we only had about 2 days worth of work to complete the project, Chuck's company, out of the blue offered to relocate us to Utah. They would pay for the move, put us in temporary housing (which we are still in), until we could find a house to buy, pay to store our furniture, etc.- the whole package. Within 2 weeks our house was on the market: FOR SALE BY OWNER, which sold in 10 days for $35K OVER our asking price. Truly all those years of prayers were answered, but on the Lord's time table.
So, here we are in Park City for 3 weeks living in a cute 3bdrm 3.5 bath condo looking for a house to buy. Apparently, we are very picky! Our poor real estate agent has shown us probably 2 dozen houses and none of them are quite right. I feel like Goldilocks unwilling to settle for anything less than perfect.
But we want what we want, and worse yet- we know exactly what we want. It isn't just the house, the setting is just as, if not more important.
I have always wanted a cabin in the woods as a vacation home, but now we are living our vacation setting dream and Chuck has bought in on wanting a home set in the woods, surrounded by trees and wildlife, where you can't see or hear your neighbors. Eventually, we will either buy or perhaps build the house we have been looking for.
