The Move

(Writing about events of 2013-2014 a year later. Better late than never!)

We ended up getting the house on the market about a week before Christmas and just a day or so before our big Christmas party we were planning. It was no easy feat getting it ready for market that time of year, but we priced it right and hoped for the best. The next day we had a showing and an offer! It ended up being a contingent offer, contingent on the lady selling her own house. Basically, she fell in love with the house and wanted it, but didn't even have her house on the market yet. We could still show the house, but if we got another offer, she had to either go to closing or it was gone. She would have first pick, though. In the meantime, we had a low key Christmas, tons of house showings, went on a house hunting trip to Nashville, and planned the big move for the first week of January.

Celebrating one last Indy New Years Eve with friends.

Our stuff was going to be packed up and moved by a professional company, so even though I didn't have to pack boxes, there were a lot of logistics to take care of. Unfortunately, the 2 days the movers where there to move us, the weather took a turn for the worst. A blizzard was coming on Sunday and the truck arrived a day late and they didn't get started till friday afternoon. We had so much stuff (15000 pounds?) it was going to take a while. We really needed to leave by Saturday night so we could get out before the blizzard hit. Saturday afternoon came and the truck was still being packed, I was exhausted and overwhelmed. The last items were on the truck at about 8 pm and the truck planned on leaving early the next morning, hopefully before too much snow. Kevin and I decided we were both too exhausted (I was about 30 weeks pregnant, so I was usually tired) to try to drive through the night. Plus, it had already started snowing, so it would be hard to see at night. We all slept on the floor in the living room and hoped to leave early in the morning. Sunday morning came and so did the blizzard. We gave a tearful goodbye to the house and drove slowly toward the freeway.


 The view of the house as we left.

Pretty sure I was sobbing in this picture. I was overwhelmed and tired and feeling sad about leaving this house, those woods, and all our friends in IN.

It was already whiteout conditions. Even though the movers swore up and down they would get out early, we saw them still parked at the Meijer down the street as we drove by. What would normally take about 7 hours, ended up taking over 14. It was like the apocalypse. We were forced to drive single file at about 15-20 mph the entire way on the freeway. Only one lane was open and you had to stay in the car in front of you's tire tracks or you'd slide off. Any faster and you'd spin out, any slower and you'd get stuck. I've never seen so much snow! All businesses and food places were closed, so we had a hard time finding food on the way. We left at 10 in the morning and didn't get to our rental house until 1 am. The one time we stopped to find food, we got stuck in the snow. In short, it was a scary, miserable drive. We debated about waiting out the storm, but I'm glad we didn't. The city ended up being shut down for several days. The next morning, we anticipated our truck would be there. Turns out they had become stuck back in Indianapolis and were in several feet of snow. It took them 5 days to finally get the truck out. In the meantime, we lived out of suitcases, slept on air mattresses and ate on overturned laundry baskets. We also got sicker than we have ever been. All 3 kids and got the flu and it was HORRIBLE. The day the truck finally arrived, Rori had a fever of 103-104 and cried anytime she was awake.

 Fortunately, an angel from our new ward helped me out by logging all the boxes in and keeping an eye on things while I took care of Rori and the other kids. We ended up not being very happy with the movers since they did several things wrong and even a box of our DIRTY LAUNDRY to the wrong address. Oh, of all the things......


The truck arriving at the rental

We got to unpacking and healing all the sickies. A few days later, we left for California. We were no where close to being unpacked or organized, but I was happy to have the break! While we were there, we received news that our Indiana house had received another offer! We didn't think the first offer would be able to counter, but they did, and ended up offering over the asking price! Hallelujah. That house was extremely hard to care for in the winter. We had to hire someone to clear the snow each time we had a showing and had to hire people to clean and do upkeep. It was getting expensive and stressful. Just before we were set to close, there was a leak in the skylight and in the basement, causing us to have to spend several thousands in repairs. It was a major bummer since we were just days away from it being someone else's problem. Still, it was a huge blessing that it sold quickly and for a good price. So, we said goodbye to our Indiana home just in time to put an offer in on a new house in Nashville! We closed on the IN home about 2 weeks before the arrival of baby #4 and closed on our new home about a week before! It was a crazy time.  Between January and April, I was the sickest I've ever been in my life. I just kept getting sick. I'm sure it was from stress and it was nice when we were finally all well.


A look inside the rental!

The Decision

(Writing about the events of 2013-2014 a year later! Better late than never, I suppose.....)

When we went on our 10 year anniversary cruise in October 2013, there was the start of a big change in the air. A few months prior, Kevin and I discussed the future as far as his employment and started to wonder if we wanted to stay in Indiana forever or if we were meant for somewhere else. After 5 years, this was the longest we had ever lived in one place and it had really become home to us. Still, I couldn't ever see us retiring there and had always wondered about other possibilities. Things were getting complicated at work for Kevin and there were some changes that made us uneasy. He quietly put some feelers out in the industry to see if there were any possibilities. Turns out Pearl Corp USA, based in Nashville,  had some changes coming, too. Their longtime marketing person and longtime friend of Kevin was on his way to retirement soon. With this in mind, Kevin reached out to Pearl to tell them his possible interest and to see if they had any as well. There were some emails exchanged with moderate interest, but other than that, the idea was put on the back burner. Finally, around the beginning of November, the people at Pearl arranged to meet with Kevin at a convention they would both be at just before Thanksgiving. They seemed eager to discuss a possible future with him and we were getting excited at the possibility as well. After the meeting and a subsequent offer, we had a big decision to make over Thanksgiving weekend. Conn-Selmer/Ludwig had been good to us. Financially speaking, we had a pretty sweet deal in Indiana. Kevin made a very good salary and our mortgage was awesome. We knew cost of living would go up in Nashville, but so would the possibilities. It seemed Conn-Selmer was starting to turn into a dead end and we just wanted more room for growth. Ugh, it was such a hard decision! We had so many wonderful friends, an amazing ward, a choir I loved singing with, and a home that we had fallen in love with. Still, I knew in my heart it was the right decision. As soon as we prayed about it, I knew. We were needed in Nashville!! So, Kevin resigned from CS and signed on with Pearl the last week of November/first week of December and wanted him to start ASAP. Let me tell you, the thought of putting our house up for sale and moving during Christmas while pregnant and with a 5, 3, and 1 year old seemed overwhelming. Plus, we were leisurely renovating our basement and had already planned on holding a little concert/party at our house right before Christmas. So, the concert/party turned into a farewell and the basement project went into overdrive. We got our house ready to sell after only living there one year! So SAD. I loved that house and still mourn the fact we had to leave it : ( We put it up the week before Christmas and started looking for a rental home somewhere in Nashville. We'll cover the move drama in the next post!

Here are some before and afters of our basement. Basically we ripped out the ceiling and put in recessed lighting, ripped out the carpet and put down vinyl planks, and painted. Sooo much nicer and clean looking!!

 BEFORE:

AFTER: