Twists and Turns

Life is funny.

And sometimes not so funny.

We arrived in Fresno late late late Friday night. Mom was kind enough to come with me and the children so I didn't have to make the 14 hour drive alone and try to keep babies happy the whole time. Jake drove the enormous truck of course.

Saturday morning we went for our final walk through on the house.

I could tell as we pulled up Jake was not feelin' it.

Remember he had never seen it before.

After walking around for a little while I could see he was struggling with something. Kind of like the last time I saw him make the hard but right choice to quit his job as an attorney and work for himself.

So I sent the kids to the park with my mom and we looked around some more.

In the end, the house wasn't all that we expected, we couldn't get our loan to be exactly what we wanted and we had an overall anxious feeling about the matter. If you can't trust those gut feelings that make you want to puke what can you trust?

I had a small panic attack, about two weeks ago that maybe we should wait until we knew more about the area before buying a home. But Jake assured me it would be fine.

A week before move in date Jake has some more anxiety because we weren't able to get the interest rates and loans like we wanted. But we crunched some numbers and decided it was alright.

Prayers and fasting and we weren't sure we had an answer so we proceeded.

But walking around the property Jake was sure we just shouldn't buy the house.

A hard but right decision.

Sometimes we wish didn't have to be grown-ups for a few days

you know.

We canceled the purchase. And lost a lot of money doing so darn it.

Me. Frustrated. Devastated. And mostly sick with worry about how the children would feel when we told them we wouldn't be moving into the house. Sick Sick Sick.

But in the end- trusting, that Jake was right.

The kids have been resilient. And funny.

Saying things like "our new house is broken, but I can fix it with my hammer"- Sam, or "Dad didn't like the new house"-Kate.

But I can see the confusion as we told them we would move into a blue house, with a pool and big bathtub and fireplace. And now we are not.

They play at grandma freeman's where we are staying and ask "Is this California" and say "bless that we can move into our new house soon" in their prayers at dinner. or ask how many days until Christmas because I told them we were moving before Christmas.

Sometimes Kate will catch me without a smile and ask "Mom why is your face like that" She knows something is up. So I am trying to be more cheerful.

Lucky for us we do have a place that is comfortable, supportive and close at my in-laws.

Scrambling like chickens again.

We have found a property to rent, funny enough on the same street Austin.

That is what the picture is above.

I kind of didn't want to rent it, just because it will sting every time I drive to the new home and pass the "what-was-to-be" new home.

But it is nice, no pool, lots of colored rooms, but comfortable and large enough.

I keep saying this is better.

It will be better to save a bit more before jumping into a new house.

It will be better to make sure I like it here and don't want to just move back home.

It will be better because we can get to know the exact area we would prefer, or perhaps build something instead.

But it was a great house.

There is always tomorrow for dreams to come true- or so says Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeers girlfriend on the Christmas movie that has been playing on repeat on the car DVD player all week long.

I hope she is right.

In the mean time we are going to try out being renters.

That will be a new adventure for us. What will we do without having to do home repairs and landscaping on weekends? I guess take trips to Disneyland and the coast instead. Darn it.

For now I just miss my comfortable home and city.

Heber, where we don't stick out in Wal-mart because we are the only people with all their clothes on.

And of course all my friends and family.

And a normal Christmas. with things like snow and neighbor gifts, and hometown coziness.

It was 60 or more degrees here today. I should be happy about this but it still feels wrong.

Today we had to go withdraw a lot of money to put down for the rental, but don't have a local bank yet so we just carried this money around all day. We were a bit worried about it as we were walking around getting stolen or something. Jake said "if this gets stolen, that is it, we are just going to turn around drive back to Utah" That is kind of how I feel too. I realize a lot more could have gone wrong with our journey here, but it hasn't felt like fate was in our favor either.

The good news is we should be in our new rental by the weekend.

With just enough time to trim the tree and put dishes away before Santa comes down our chimney.

It will be nice to not feel like we are running from the law or something like that.

And just be a little family all settled again.

I'm ready for a normal nights sleep too.

Is that coming anytime soon?