An Acceptable Offer

I have been out of touch with the blogging world since our move, but I'm now trying to do a better job of updating at least once per week (my original blogging goal). As you know, we left Germany in November and Jason started his new job in Oklahoma City on 1 December. We took a 6 month lease on an apartment so that we could take our time looking for a house to buy. With the holidays behind us, we got serious with house-hunting in January. We found a home at the end of January, secured an incredible interest rate, and finally reached an agreement with the seller two Saturdays ago. We signed the purchase agreement on my birthday, which was a fantastic gift, and we are projected to close on 17 April. We can hardly wait!

Our household goods arrived in Virginia, but rather than move them into our apartment only to move them again in two months, we've decided to stick it out without our stuff until we move into our home in May. (We have some updating we'd like to do to the home, so we won't be able to move in right after closing.)

I cannot express how good it feels to finally know where we are going to live. That was a huge block checked off of our list of things to do. We've felt very unsettled, but just knowing that we've found a place to live is such a huge comfort. We are very grateful!

Last Sunday on our way to church, we were both talking about how much we are craving Europe. We miss it terribly! We were both feeling a serious itch to travel but weren't planning on anything major since we are buying a house and expecting a baby. Well, the Lord brought serious relief to our itch on Monday. Jason found out that he has two back-to-back conferences in Salt Lake City, Utah. Each conference lasts one week. Rather than flying back to Oklahoma between the two conferences, his boss approved a hotel stay over the weekend. Since my husband is so amazing and would rather be with us than have a two week vacation to himself, we are all three going! We leave next Friday, the 13th, and we can hardly wait. We are going to drive - crazy as it sounds - and see some of our dearest friends who live in Colorado Springs on the way there and on the way back.

I've been to Colorado, but I've never driven across the entire state and I've never been to Utah. Jackson and I will have the days to see things around the city and then we'll have the evenings to be together as a family. We'll have the entire weekend between the conferences to see the nearby sites, and we'll get two weekends with some of our most beloved friends, the Madrids. (We met the Madrids whenever we lived in Italy. While we were in Oklahoma the last time, they came to see us twice and we went to see them twice. Then, when we moved back from Germany, our flight got rerouted through Denver and we got to see them for a few hours.) We are so excited about this trip. Not only is this going to pass some of the time in between now and closing on our house, but we're going to get to sleep in a bed for two whole weeks!