Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

Jeremy was super excited to get us tickets to the Grand Prix on April 20. I didn't know much about it, and I still don't know much about it, other than it was really cool. Basically, they close off a bunch of roads in Long Beach and let race cars zoom around the town at 200 miles an hour. They have food, venders, entertainment, the works.

 The cars are really, really loud. Tanner was pretty nervous about them at first. He did NOT want to watch the races at all.

 They had a big car show/vender's fair thing in the giant conference hall. Tanner liked that much more than the real races. He was elated when we found the model cars to sit in and "drive."

They had a kids area with games and little race cars. Tanner was too little to make them drive, so he was upset that his car was not moving. 

 We got great seats right next to the race track. By this point, Tanner was much more comfortable with the race cars. He was yelling "Go car, go!!" and "WOW!" "LOUD!"

 And here's a random picture of my boy taking a bubble bath. What a cutie pie! He likes to scoop up the bubbles in his red bowl and play in the running water.

Selling the house

I mentioned in the previous post that during my spring break we had our home on the market (Tues to Sun). We couldn't be at the home from 10:00 am- 7:00 pm in order for people to see our home. During that week, we had over 100 agents come through and about 40-50 buyers. Here are some photos of Tanner and me passing the time. Naps had to be in the car... 

 Lunch had to be eaten out...

(Tanner loved seasoning the table with salt. Can you see the layer of white on the table?)

and we got to visit Dada a few times.

 One day we ate at a super yummy Indian Restaurant.

This is Tanner learning to say "cheese" for the camera.

Don't forget, we also visited with Taryn in LA for one of these days.

 And we spent some early evenings with friends from church, including the Bendheims and the Wells.

 On Saturday while our home was on the market, we went to Newport beach and got ice cream cones.

On Sunday, we also had people viewing the home, so we stayed at the church for a looong time and let Tanner play in the nursery. (personal note- it was general conference weekend, so we were at the stake center). Tanner loved the stroller. He likes playing with toys you can push.

It made for a very interesting- and fun- week of outings with my boy!

BIG Changes

Lots of big changes are happening in our family. To say that we've been busy is a huge understatement.

Staying Home Full-time

Friday was my last official day teaching music at the private school. Now, I get to be home full-time with Tanner and my future baby. We decided this a long time ago- even before I got pregnant. It was always in the plan that baby #2 would be the time to call it quits with teaching for a few years. At this particular job, the workload is unbelievably huge and the pay is about 20,000 less than what I would get teaching in public school. So besides the emotional and spiritual benefits of being home with my kids, the financial benefits are huge, too. We wouldn't make much money if I keep working. 

I've definitely learned a lot this year while being a mom of a toddler, being pregnant, and working full-time. It really has been one of the most challenging years of my teaching career. A lot has happened at work this year that has made it very easy for me to be excited to stay home full-time. The only thing I'll miss about teaching is the children. Now I'll get to do more things like this without thinking about work:

(34 weeks prego in this picture)

Jeremy's New Job

So since I decided to stay home full time, Jeremy started looking for job promotions within Hormel. He applied for about 10 different jobs- some here in Orange County and some at the corporate office in Minnesota. He kept getting discouraged when each job was filled by other people. But I told him to just be patient, the timing wasn't right yet. I knew that God would bless him for his efforts. We are trying to live our lives in a way that's pleasing unto Him, so I knew that God wouldn't let us down.

Sure enough, in March he was offered the job of Assistant Brand Manager for Skippy Peanut Butter! This is the best one that he applied for. The job is in marketing with Hormel at the corporate office. He began his first day of work on April 1 (and kept working the old job until May 1). And that's why he's been going out of town so often since then. As soon as our baby is born, and Jeremy graduates, we will move to the small town of Austin, Minnesota!! 

Selling Our Home

So that's why we decided to list and sell our home the first week of April. I basically spent my entire Spring Break keeping the house clean by staying out of the house from 10:00 am to 7:00 pm every day so that people could see the home. This was really challenging to do because finding places to take a toddler all. day. long. is really hard. People asked me if I felt it would even be worth it to work so hard to have our home perfect for viewing. Well, would YOU wanna buy a home that looked like this?

Well, turns out the answer is yes, it was worth it, and yes, lots of people wanted the place. God has really been watching over us! The market in OC right now is a seller's market- literally no one is selling and there are thousands of people buying. If we tried selling even 6 months ago, we would probably lose money on our town home. But we were able to list the house for more than we paid. And we got 15 offers in 5 days that were at and above asking price. We eventually accepted the highest offer, which was $50,000 more than our asking price!! (Now we can pay for Jeremy's grad school tuition!) Now the home is almost finished with escrow. Over the years, we invested about $18,000 into remodeling the place. Plus all the cleaning, dejunking, recleaning and staying out of the home for a week. But it was completely worth it!

Buying a New Home!

We actually already bought a place to live in Austin, Minnesota! Jeremy spent a couple days looking at homes while he was there for business. The market there is a buyer's market- with dozens upon dozens of homes in our price range and hardly any buyers. Once again, God has made the timing perfect! Jeremy videoed about 5 houses that he liked the best and took lots of pictures. Based on the videos, he let me choose the home that I liked the most. (Keep in mind that we lived in Austin one summer, so I know the town/neighborhoods/etc really well. I felt very comfortable choosing a house that I hadn't actually walked in). We put an offer on it with a really sappy cover letter and got it! 

The place was built in 1992, it is 3400 sq feet, 4 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 2 story plus a finished basement, 1/2 acre lot, 2 car garage, separate family room, living room and playroom! It is 3 times the size of our Huntington Beach home, and a fraction of the cost. Funny thing though, it's actually the smallest home in it's neighborhood. But it has everything we want. We're stoked!

Just a few more things to add to the mix!

So in addition to me finishing work, Jeremy getting promoted, selling a home and buying a home, we also will have our baby this week (hopefully before Friday)! And Jeremy will graduate from USC with his MBA on Friday. The moving company will be here two weeks later to pack our house up. We will drive away on May 29. The plan is to take 4 days to get to Minnesota, stopping at a few places including the Grand Canyon, Utah and Colorado. I'm so, so, SO excited about all of this! There are so many things to be grateful for at this time; we are truly being blessed. It's made all the challenges that we've endured this year worth it.

An. Tee!

Auntie Desha came to take care of us from April 25-30.  Tanner had a blast with her. When she first saw him, he reached out to her from his stroller and said "An- tee!" and gave her a big hug. This was surprising to all of us since he hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving and he is generally very reserved when seeing new people.

The two buddies played outside, read lots of books, cooked, ate, watched movies, went to stores, and napped together. Desha came at the perfect time because we had lots of home inspectors and people at our home while Jeremy and I were at work. She helped keep the house clean for all of that, and fed us the yummiest, healthiest food!

On Saturday, we ate at a yummy authentic Mexican restaurant. Then we went to the San Juan Capistrano Mission for the first time. It was beautiful! And we learned some cool things on the self guided audio tour.

Tanner pushed his stroller around the entire time. It was the perfect place for him to be able to go wherever he wanted without bumping into people or things.

I'm 37 weeks pregnant in these pics! It seemed like between 34 and 37 weeks I got really huge. My size hasn't changed much since these pics.

After a few hours at the mission, we went to the tide pools in Carona Del Mar to find Desha a sea slug. Tanner and Jeremy played in the sand while Desha and I explored.

(Here's a good shot of Tanner's hair shortly after I gave it a 1-inch trim. Desha and Jeremy think it's still too long, but I love those curls!)

We saw lots of cool things, but after about an hour, there was still no sight of sea slugs. I was determined to find one, especially since we saw dozens last time. Finally, I saw one in some deeper water. I reached into the tide pool and got my prego belly all wet. Then, as I rushed to show Desha, I stepped on something really sharp (I had just barely taken my sandals off because the slug was in a sandy area and I figured it would be easier to get it without my sandals on). It hurt pretty bad, but I just gritted my teeth and didn't think of it again....until Desha noticed that a big pool of blood was accumulating around my foot! Upon further inspection, we discovered that I had a deep gash in my heel. We used Tanners white blankie (it was all we had) to make a temporary bandage so that sand wouldn't get in it. Unfortunately, I couldn't walk on that foot for about 3 days, which sucked since I had a performance to direct. But since Desha took care of it really well, it has healed nicely. 

Tanner loved having his An. Tee with us. He looked forward to finding her on the blow up mattress every morning. "Oh! An. Tee!" He would choose her over me or Jeremy to hold him. He balled and balled when Desha left at the end of the week. "An. Tee! No bye-bye. An. Teeeeeeee!" I hated watching her leave, too. It was so wonderful having her here to help us and to keep me company. I love you, Desha. Thank you for being such a wonderful auntie to my son. We miss you!