Abandon Ship!

Have you missed us? Been wondering where we are? Well, it's been a liiiiittle busy around here. Thankfully, things are settling down and it's just your standard work, school, hockey, soccer, horse camp, piano balancing act. Perhaps related: Quinn had her first soccer practice of the season tonight. Mike and I may have been in the small human section of Scheel's earlier today buying the one pair of soccer cleats left in her size ... because when she tried on last season's cleats this morning, she couldn't even get her heel in. Allegedly.

Also perhaps related: Quinn has a soccer game on Saturday. That she will have to leave 15 minutes early in order to get up to Minnetonka on time for her Saturday hockey game. This is the current version of "settled down."

Anyhoo ... we spent last week prepping, repairing, and cleaning the house as showings started on Friday afternoon. Mike and I had to work, so during lunch, we hurriedly cleaned and staged and moved our valuables out of the house. We were quite proud of our project management. Our goal was to leave the house at 2pm - and I mopped us out the door at 1:59pm. We headed over to the school to pick up the kids early and then pointed the car north toward GR. We had told them to go to the bathroom at school because no one (and no one's sticky fingers) were allowed back in our house until we returned on Sunday.

We had 15 showings on Friday night and another 20 between Saturday morning and 10am Sunday. We also canceled an additional 5 showings that were later in the day on Sunday. We received texts from multiple neighbors about how busy our house was and Where Were We? We told them that we had abandoned ship so as to not deal with the insanity. Based on the zoo-like atmosphere they all described, it was the right decision.

Thirty-five showings ended with 14 offers (including one that came in last Monday "sight unseen" that we declined because of some funky terms). 14 offers sounds like a great problem to have. And it honestly was. But it was also extremely overwhelming. By late Saturday night, I simply laid down on the floor of my parents' living room. I was done.

We did not take the highest offer (it just didn't feel right), but we are pleased with the one we accepted. It's a young family with a dog and a little boy, who are very excited about our back yard. The terms were great and the price was right. We had the papers signed Sunday morning and returned home with the house under contract! The next step is for all the closing date dominoes to align so we know what we are working toward. Hopefully by the end of next week, we'll know the close date on our new house and then can work out the close date on this house. 

Since we are in a bit of house transfer limbo now, we've taken that as permission to temporarily pause the packing process. I have packed exactly zero boxes since we returned from GR. I also may have left something in the middle of the kitchen counter when I went to the office on Monday. Because I could.

Again. Allegedly. 

We Did a Thing ...

Friday night, I was cleaning up dinner, got interrupted to help Declan with something, and when I came back, I looked at the dishes in the sink and thought "did I wash them? or do I need to wash them?" So that's where we are around here for brain capacity. The adrenaline high I had been riding for a week and a half was officially tapped. I know that's true, because normally I can remember if I washed a pot 90 seconds ago or not. [I decided I had washed them. We live dangerously here.]

Why is my brain fried, you ask? Because we bought a house!!! Can you believe it? After two years of limbo (will we? won't we? will we ever find one? will we ever get an offer accepted in this insanely hot market?), there may actually be a plan that ends with the children not all sharing a bedroom. 

The market is red hot right now in Shakopee. Yet somehow, we found a house at the end of a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood we were hoping for. It's the main feeder neighborhood for the kids' current elementary school, so they don't need to change schools. Declan's best friend A (you may remember him from our skate night) lives in the next cul-de-sac over - as do a couple of Fiona's good friends. And Q's friend T lives about half a mile down the road. In fact, A's mom sent me a text picture of the "nightly street hockey game" and said they can't wait for a couple more players. We will miss our current neighborhood friends so much, but are excited for a 'hood full of kids!

The house we bought went on the market at noon on Tuesday. We saw it at 3:30 and had our offer in by 7:30 that night. Let's just say it was an aggressive offer. The sellers set an offer deadline for 9am Wednesday morning and they had over 10 offers. In less than 24 hours! We found out after the fact that we were not the highest offer, but had the best terms. The letter I wrote helped as well. 

We spent last week decluttering, cleaning, and staging our house for pictures on Friday. It was a lot of late nights and trips to the storage unit. Real truth: Mike does not like decluttering. He has two speeds: Pack a Room Entirely or Wander About Not Knowing What To Do. When it comes to house stuff, there are few moments when my skillset is more useful than Mike's. So I have to record it when it happens. This week is house repairs and paint touch ups ... so we're back in Mike's court. 

We are also continuing the declutter and cleaning progress, so don't worry, I'm not bored. Our house hits the market tomorrow as a "Coming Soon" and showings start Friday afternoon. We are heading out of town to not manage life around people parading through our house and have our fingers crossed that it will be sold by the end of the weekend (pretty pretty please). The constant rate of change is wearing on all of us, but especially the kids and we need to get back to a more normal lifestyle ... you know, where you are allowed to touch the walls and put things on the counter. 

We are taking advantage of the move to thin out our possessions. So I'll leave you with the following questions that were raised as I cleaned out our storage room:

- How many Barbie houses are too many? Is it five? Plus two campers and an ambulance? Because the Barbie village feels excessive. 

- Why do we have SEVEN Halloween trick-or-treat pumpkins? Seven. Are there children living here I don't know about?

- Why does Mike insist on keeping a 200 disc CD changer? That monstrosity is going to follow us forever, isn't it?

The Winner Takes It All

Subtitle: The Night My Sister Lost Her Sh*t

On Saturday the 13th (oh so behind on the blog), Mike, my parents, my sister, Cheryl, and I headed out to the theater for the current production of Mamma Mia. We have been looking forward to this since it opened in March. It's been a loooooong wait! Fun fact: I'm pretty sure that Mike did not know a single ABBA song until rehearsals started. This has been a good learning experience for him!

Fun fact 2: I am not known for my skills at keeping secrets. So ... when Mike started months ago on an arrangement to have one of the actors (Tony) pull my sister up to dance (Tony is her very favorite actor ever - in case you guys don't remember February) when they go out in the crowd for Waterloo at the end - and he told me that I could not breath a word of this to a single soul, it was incredibly HARD work! So needless to say, we have all be waiting with bated breath for this weekend!

We were back to the super premium seating that we know and love. Mike's acting contacts told us which seat we needed to have Emmy in ... which became my job. Oh my heavens, the stress! Then Mike told me that there was a virus going through the cast and we were going to have the understudy to the understudy for Donna. Womp womp. I was a bit bummed out as we had been waiting so long for the show.

You guys, I retract all concern I ever had and extend my apologies to the understudy of the understudy. She was hands down PHENOMENAL. When she sang "The Winner Takes It All," I was willing to forego the rest of the play if she would just sing it again. The show was incredible and I'm pretty sure we are all trying to figure out when we can go again (made easier by the fact that they just extended the run for another six months because it is selling so well!). Fun fact 3: if you are local, do not pause. Buy tickets to the show. Not just because Mike needs a paycheck. But because you will not regret it!

Through cunning, lying, and straight up luck, I finagled my sister into the correct seat. Then when I noticed that some of the other tables were standing up for the "sing a long" finale ... Em and I stood up too. And then Tony snuck up behind her, grabbed her hand, and she lived her best life dancing and singing in the aisle as a real life part of the show! Mike is so great for arranging this for her ... and I was so relieved that I no longer had to keep that secret!

Tony returned Emmy to us, winked at Mike (I love them both so much), and Em proceeded to laugh/cry/sweat and lose her dang mind. It was fantastic! For beginning to end, we had the very best night together and I don't think we stopped laughing the whole evening.

Adults Go Out

You guys ... I'm kinda afraid to mention this - lest I jinx it. But, barring unforeseen catastrophe on Saturday, Mike and I will have gone out together three weekends in a row. That has not happened in 8 years, 7 months, and 19 days (give or take ...). We still so rarely get a sitter that just the act of going out is news in itself. But three weekends in a row?!?! It's like Parents Gone Wild around here.

Last Friday night, we hurried ourselves home from work, handed the kids off to Kallie, and sat in traffic to get to USBank Stadium downtown Minneapolis. Because ... it was finally time for Garth!!! We (re)learned two things: 1) Friday night concerts are rough. We are so done from the week. And the concert went so long. 2) We are not large venue people in general, but USBank Stadium is like ginormous venue. There were way too many people!

Secret third verse (ha! Garth fans totally get this reference) ... it's not news, but you guys, if you have to be downtown, go with Mike. He figured out where we were parking, which was super easy to get to. But even better - we went from massive congestion while walking to our car to basically no traffic. And just zipped out of downtown while others sat in wall-to-wall standstill traffic. Mike Vanneste is my hero. That also could be because he had a blanket in his car and it was cold outside!

Despite all the people and more waiting than our impatient Friday selves cared for, the concert was AWESOME and totally worth it! Best Mike's math can tell, Garth played seven or eight of my "Top 5 Favorite" songs. I may have trouble narrowing it down. I started to write about my very favorite concert moment - but we seem to be spiraling into a repeat of the eight Top 5 story. Mike says that it's hard not to claim Friends in Low Places as the highlight. He's right. Fishin' in the Dark was also epic. Basically it was a great night and eventually I was grateful for all the people in front of us - because dang, we were high up!

The Saturday before that, we took advantage of a visit from Gma and Gpa N and their willingness to babysit in order to go to our friend Josh's 40th birthday bash. His wife had rented out a bar in downtown St. Paul and set up karaoke with a live band. It was amazing and we had the best time! Neither Mike nor I sang on stage, but did plenty of singalong action at our table and on the dance floor. Several of our friends got up there and sang - and let me tell you, the live band was impressed with the musicality of the gang.

Josh has cystic fibrosis and making it to 40 is a really big deal. He gave the most amazing speech that activated the spring allergies in everyone's eyes ... ahem .. and reminded us that growing old is a privilege and to be proud of some the changes that we maybe don't always love. He also asked for a birthday present - that everyone to do something nice for someone else with no fanfare. Just to do it. To spread kindness because the world could use it.

We hope to sneak out Saturday night for just a couple hours to celebrate another 40th birthday here in S-town. And to remind ourselves that this whole crazy life started with two kids who liked to spend time together. Fun fact: they seemingly still do!

Doubling the Size of Our House

I'm tired. Not pregnancy tired (although there is definitely some of that ... hello 3rd trimester). But work as hard as you can after bedtime tired. And I have the easy jobs. Mike is really the guy who has been doing the lion's share of the manual labor. I've got a keeper in that one!

But we are getting really close to putting together the family space in the basement that we've always dreamed of. We never really used the basement when Matthew lived here - not because he didn't want us to. But you do want to let a guy feel like he has some privacy. So we just tossed old, mismatched furniture down there and called it good. Then when Fiona arrived and kicked the guest bed out of the nursery, it ended up pushed against one end of the long family room. A guest bed - but zero privacy. Not ideal.

Since Matthew moved out, we've painted and recarpeted his old room and made it a bedroom/office. We're still working on some of the final touches, but it is fully functional for visitors. Hooray!

Last weekend, Mike and Brad moved said old, mismatched furniture out the basement (hello Craigslist!) so that the new sectional could be delivered. We LOVE it and Fiona totally approves! We also got a new entertainment center and Mike got permission to buy a new flat screen TV. He came home with one bigger than what I remember agreeing to - but he stayed within budget so I don't care!

The Craigslist app on Mike's phone has thus far proven useful in Operation: Get Rid of the Crap We Don't Want Anymore and Is Taking Up Space In Our Garage. However, he has also found some good outside toys for Buggy - so it's cost us more than it has made us. I'm holding out hope we can break even as the pile of stuff in the garage continues to disappear.

Here are a couple pictures of the new space. Next on the list is really working on the back end of the family room - which will be the toy area for the kids. But we do have a few toys in there and Fiona thoroughly enjoys playing downstairs. So while we technically haven't doubled the size of our house, it sure feels that way to everyone!

Ready for visitors

New sectional (imagine me saying as I take this,
"Buggy, do not color on the new couch")

Start of the toy room

Nothing to do with the basement, but I love the CHEESE face

Date Night

Thanks to Grandpa V, Mike and I were able to attend the wedding reception of a good friend as a couple - not a trio. Fiona and Grandpa had a great time as did Mike and I. We appreciated the time to see our friends and be adults for a few hours. And then were very happy to come back to our girl.