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Moving sucks. There really isn’t any other description for it. I think I have said, “we are never moving again” about 1,256,987 times since we started packing. We lived in our home for 6 years. After 6 years in the same home with 6 people, 5 dogs, and 5 fish living in it, you really accumulate a lot of… STUFF! I knew we had a lot of stuff, but holy guacamole! It’s been nothing short of chaos in our nest lately. I just keep reminding myself to breathe.
For those that don’t know…In September, after searching for many months, we found our perfect home! We were fortunate enough to come across a new community being built in the area we had been looking to buy. We really wanted to find a ranch style home with one level, because the stairs are too much for me. Over the last 5 months, my little birdies and I have been driving past our new house site every day on our way to school in the mornings. It has been so exciting to see the progress. It still amazes me how quickly our dirt lot became a home. We took lots of photos to document the progress. (Sorry they are awful iPhone photos!) I know….I know…the photographer uses an iPhone for personal photos. It’s horrible, I know. It’s a resolution of mine to use my big expensive DSLR I use with all my clients, on my own life happenings too 😉 It’s coming, I promise!
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We took this right after we put our deposit down on our new home!
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The future site of where our home would be built. Lot #8
Trenches are ready for footers!
Footers secured, and it’s bright as hell! Somebody get these kids some sunglasses! HAHA!!
Foundation is poured!!!!
Six weeks in, and we have a structure up! AHHHHH! SOOOO EXCITING!!! Oh, and it was pink day at school, and JoJo had dance class, hence the interesting outfits 😉
Arches for my studio!!!
Back of the house
Front of the house.
Roof tiles were delivered!
Starting to look like a real house! Eeeeek!!
We have a driveway!
Windows are in!
Kids bathroom tub is installed!
My husband and I were so graciously gifted a trip to Playa Del Carmen, Mexico from a fellow photog, (the owner of HOF) to attend an incredible photography retreat. It couldn’t have come at a better time. In November we celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary, and we had never taken a honeymoon or a trip just the two of us, ever. We spent an entire week with some pretty amazing people. We met new lifelong friends and made so many memories with them. It was absolutely incredible.
We came home December 11th from our beautiful trip, to find our new home with drywall up and the exterior stuccoed….While that should be something we should have been excited about, we were in complete shock. We went from being completely relaxed to stress level 9000. After a call to our sales representative, she informed us that we could do our first walk through to start the closing process, on January 30th. Through this entire process, our rep we have been working with had been telling us that our new home wouldn’t be done being built until April-May and that we could wait to list our home till mid to end of January…We were mortified. We now had to pack up our lives and make Christmas happen all in about two weeks time. Not to mention, ya know…SELL OUR HOUSE! HA! Breathe, Jess. Just breathe.
When you have 4 kids and 3 of them are 10 and under, Christmas is a big deal. Since we had gone on our trip, I hadn’t gone Christmas shopping at all. I hadn’t even bought one present! It was a mess. Wrapping on Christmas Eve till 2 am was not my idea of a good time! BUT, through all the stress, we made Christmas happen, and the kids got everything they wished for. It was a bit of a bittersweet day, because I knew that it was our last Christmas in that house. Breathe. We will make new memories in our new home, and I can’t wait for that 🙂
After Christmas and New Years, we listed our house. It went live on January 6th.
We thought it would be best to move out of the house while we were showing it, to keep it looking “model home perfect”(which is an impossible task with kiddos!) So, we moved everyone in with my in-laws. A few short days after moving in, my husband and I were off to California for another trip. This time to celebrate our 30th birthday’s together, in the happiest place on earth….DISNEYLAND!!! My favorite place in the whole world <3 <3 We were awful horrible mean parents, and went sans kids. (Don’t worry, they have been several times before!) While we were there, we received a call from our realtor that we had a cash offer on our home! Just 5 days after listing!!!! On my birthday the buyer accepted our counter offer and just like that, our house was SOLD! We finally felt like we could take a breath of air and relax a little bit. Our amazing realtor was definitely to thank. She went above and beyond and was an absolute pleasure to work with. If you ever need to sell your home, do yourself a favor and call Neema!
After we came back from Disneyland we ended up staying with my parents, because they have a one level house and they are a little bit closer to the kids’ school. We were basically told by our builder to hurry up and sell our house. So we did…and now we are waiting. There has been delay after delay. Everything has to be done and perfect before we can close. While I totally get that, I can’t help but be so frustrated that we had to hurry up to wait. We have invaded my poor parents house and their living room looks like a storage unit now. They have been so amazing and so patient with it all. I know it isn’t easy having 6 extra people in their house, plus all our fur and fin babies. It’s definitely been an adjustment for everyone, but I do have to say, that we are at the start of week 5 staying with Mom and Dad and things have started to settle down over the last two weeks. Everyone is getting into a routine now, and getting used to their temporary rooms. It’s been so awesome to be back in my childhood home. I appreciate the help so much from my parents. It really does take a village to raise children. Especially when you have four. And I am so thankful to my village. To my other village members, (you know who you are) thank YOU too! I couldn’t do any of this without ALL of you. I love you all. So much.
We closed on our old house on Friday February 10th and now we are still playing the waiting game for our new house. We are set to close on our new home mid March but it is dependent on yet another delay. First, we discovered carpet in my studio…Babies poop and carpet would just be no bueno in my studio. Plus, cake smashes. Yeah, no. So that needs to be ripped out and re-tiled and is set to be completed this week.
Then, the BIG kahuna that has caused a LOT of stress. A lot of anxiety. And a whoooooole lot of tears. My hubby and I walked into our master bathroom to discover a very interesting (to say the least) setup for the shower. As most of you know, I am disabled. The current setup was anything but accessible for me. It was completely different than the model we were shown and there was no mention of a different design at any time. We bought this house with the intention of having a home that was more accessible for me, because our old home was a tri-level…lots and lots of stairs! Thankfully, after a looooot of back and forth with our builder, they agreed to fix the bathroom for us at no cost. I can’t even describe how grateful I am that they are doing this for us. They started demo on Friday and we are still being told it will be done mid-March, and then we can close. It’s basically driving me insane not knowing an exact day, but I just gotta breathe.
This is the original design, with the weird step up and step-down to access the shower. Strange. That’s all I have to say.
This is what they have done so far for the new shower.
This is my horrible drawing of what they are going to do in place of the step ups. The colored in rectangle is another bench seat. The rectangles next to that on the left, is a linen closet. There will be a glass door to the shower on the front, and the handle to the shower faucet will be moved under the shower head.
They have been moving really quickly on it, and I’m still hopeful that they will maybe even get it done sooner than anticipated. Until then, I keep reminding myself to breathe. For now, we are living out of 2 storage units, with several things also stored in our cars, at my parents house and my in-laws house. Again, I say…I AM NEVER MOVING AGAIN!! This post was a bit all over the place, so if you’ve stuck with me this far, I’m sorry. But this is my life right now. Breathe. Just breathe.
I will keep you updated on our new nest in part 2 of our moving journey! Stay tuned for updates on your favorite Paradise Valley newborn photographer’s new studio and subscribe to our blog!
