Well that was a weird six weeks...

School is back in session, I am back at work, and...

We sold our house!!!

Well, technically we haven't sold it yet. We are waiting on our solicitors, and theirs, to finish up the paperwork. But we have moved out of 48 Fleetgate and into a nice (albeit much smaller) house just a few streets down on Finkle Lane.

So here's what happened:

Sarah and Hannah loved the house, they made an offer, it was a bit low so we met them half way. They agreed, and we formally accepted their offer. Then a survey was done and we had to reduce the price as their mortgage company demanded a cash retainer from them because of some issues. Not a huge deal--the house IS really freaking old. Annoying, but they were fair about it. We agreed to a completion date, and started looking for a house to rent. We found a house, got that all squared away, then started packing for our move. I got chicken pox (that's right, BLOOMING CHICKEN POX) and didn't feel up to doing much packing. The Mundays came and helped. The Tillings came and helped. Noelle's husband Richard came and helped. The missionaries helped a bit, as well. My visiting teacher and mother-in-law helped me pack up the kitchen. The Mundays helped again, including feeding us dinner when we were too tired to move. Martin worked through it all, putting in 10 hour days on a building site and 5 hour nights moving house. The kids were annoying. My asthma flared up. We finally got all moved out on the seventh of September. The solicitors still haven't completed.

ARGH!!!

I am a bit of an emotional wreck/giant ball of stress. We are in the new house, but there is no storage there and we have a lot of stuff. Granted, I am planning on getting rid of a great deal of it. But for the time being, we are shuffling around it. That first night I crawled over the boxes into our bed and cried myself to sleep, miserable that we were in this tiny house while our beautiful old (HUGE) house stood empty just a few streets away. I love that house. So many happy memories were made there. And now that it's completely empty and clean, I can see just what a great house it really is. I can't stand messes, and the new place will be one for a while until we get some storage sorted out. It feels cramped and messy, and I just want to go home. But we are doing this, and it will be worth it in the long run.

Our plan is to stay in England until around June. Then we will move back to the U.S., find jobs, get settled, and have a little bit of a summer break before the kids start school. We are hoping to buy a house, something that we can fix up like we did here. We are making a decent profit on the sale over here, so it should work out pretty well.

So there you have it--our last six weeks. Pretty mental, huh? So much for relaxing days with plenty of bike rides and picnics and swimming. Instead it was non-stop stress and paralysis, and packing, and denial, and graft. Oh, and a few lie ins as well.

This is just the first step in our journey back to Utah, and while it is incredibly stressful, it is also what we've wanted for over 5 years now. We're excited!