we moved!

I realize I'm about 2 months late posting this, but we moved in the middle of August. It was really quite an ordeal - this post could be really long. But we should record it for posterity I think. We loved our old apartment at Harmony Square, especially because it was literally a five minute walk to campus, and they were pretty nice apartments. But we decided that with a baby on the way, we wanted a little bit more space. After selling our contract, we searched and searched for a new place to live. It was a very stressful process, and we were having an awful time finding something livable. Housing in Provo is horrible, I just want to say. People think that since so many students have to live relatively close to campus, they can find an old shack and put a lock on it and charge you an arm and a leg to live there. And they're right! That's the sad thing. People definitely overpay for housing here. Anyway...

After a long time looking for a new house, we stumbled upon a small apartment complex about 4 blocks from campus, the same price as what we were paying previously, but with two bedrooms! It was miraculous. We loved it. It was everything we had been looking for. We called up the land lord and signed a contract. I spent the next few weeks planning how it would be decorated, where we would put everything, what new furniture we could buy, etc. It was awesome.

We started packing up all our stuff the week before the big move. The Thursday before we were supposed to move in (we were moving on Saturday), I get a call from my old roommate, Becky. She works at a singles complex in Provo called Cinnamon Tree. She asked if we had found a place yet. I told her yes, and we were moving on Saturday. She proceeded to tell me that at Cinnamon Tree, they hire a couple to come live and be in charge of the cleaning checks, as well as general upkeep of the complex (cleaning the laundry rooms, the lounge, sweeping the parking lot, etc). Their old couple was moving out, and they needed to fill the position. I wasn't really listening too intently until she told me how much rent was. Not only would they pay us for the work we did in the complex, but rent would be less than half of what we were currently planning on paying. Plus, they'd knock off another hundred bucks if we could be in charge of the phone a couple weekends a month. It was unbelievable! So I called Ben, and we decided to check the place out.

Becky told us before we got there that the apartment was pretty small, so we should be prepared. "Pretty small" was a huge understatement. It is apartment #8 1/2. That's right. 8 1/2. It is teeny. We could barely walk in the door. The couple living there had a gigantic wooden table right by the door, with a piano on the other side of the room. With those two pieces of furniture, we had a hard time squeezing through the living room to see the rest of the apartment. We were crawling all over each other the whole time we were there, and starting feeling just a little claustrophobic. When we walked out, I think our minds were about made up that there was no way we could make that place work - not with a baby at least. But we went in for an interview with the manager anyway. She told us the job responsibilities, again reiterated the awesome deal that it was. We went home, not sure what to do. After a couple days of going back and forth, we decided to give the tiny apartment one last chance and went over again with a tape measure. We wrote down dimensions, drew out a floor plan and played with it until we discovered how we could get our furniture to fit. We kept discussing, and praying, and flip flopping, and finally decided it was too good of a deal - there was no way we could pass it up. So we signed with Cinnamon Tree.

We were able to sell our contract at the other place really quickly (miracle #23409 of this whole adventure) and we moved in the next Tuesday (thanks again to Ruth and Dan for letting us live at your house for a couple of days). We only had to throw out a few pieces of furniture and I believe we have succeeded in making it feel like home.

We absolutely love it here. There may be times where we get frustrated because we are on week 9 with no bathroom light, or we have to pull everything out of the kitchen cabinet in order to maneuver the cookie sheets just right to where they will fit out the door. But overall we are extremely happy with our decision to live here, and we continue to receive countless blessings as a result of that decision.

Our wreaths - there you go, Mom.