Big Day

We closed on our house today! We feel very blessed, and relieved that this whole process is "over", but overwhelmed at how many things are beginning!

Here We Go!!!

Update on our house

For those of you who don't know, we are buying a duplex in American Fork, Utah! Things are moving forward. Last week we had our inspection and although there are plenty of things that CAN be done to make the place nicer, there's nothing major, and nothing that HAS to be done right away.
Yesterday our appraisal was completed so now we are in the underwriting process and are still planning to close by September 1st! Once closing is done, we can notify the tenant of the unit we plan to live in that he has to move out....which I know is terrible and I'm dreading it but that's what we have to do. We have to give him 30 days notice, which would put us around October 1. Then we want to do a few things like clean carpets, replace windows, etc before we move in, which will probably put us moving in around mid-October.
I have no pictures to post, but if you want some info each unit is 2 Bed/1 bath and the building is on a .28 acre lot. The units are side by side. There are 3 big trees in the backyard (which is fenced on all sides but 1) and a big tree in the front yard. The outside is brick. It's pretty close to the freeway, but not so close that you can hear it. The rent will cash flow if we decide to keep it as a rental property after we move out in a couple years.
It is an exciting time for us!!!

9 month stats

Here are Alayna's stats from her 9 month well-baby checkup:
Weight: 15lb 14oz 10th %
Height: 26 and 3/4" 25th %
Head Circumference: 17 and 7/8" 80th %

Her weight dropped in the percentiles because she had lost weight from having rotavirus, and we're still getting caught up from it. She is happy and healthy and took 7 steps the other day without falling!

**Note, she turned 9 months old on July 30th. Like I said, I'm playing catch up again!

The Nightmare Plane Ride

So since I seem to be running about a month behind on blogging, I will go ahead and tell you about our experience with Frontier Airlines on the way home from Florida. This picture of Alayna is really the best way to illustrate the whole thing. We left the Ft. Lauderdale airport on time to go have a layover in Denver (Frontiers "hub"). Alayna took a pretty good nap, but it is a 4 hour flight so by the time we were getting close to Denver, she was very antsy and I was anxious to get her off the plane for a stretch break. Keep in mind she is very active and starting to walk, so she doesn't want to be on someone's lap for 4 hours. I then noticed on the screen that shows where the plane is, that we started turning around. Finally the pilot explains to us that the weather in Denver was bad, and we were circling until they would let us land. Later on he came back and said we didn't have enough fuel to keep circling, so we'd land in Colorado Springs to refuel. Then he said C. Springs was full, so we'd land in Pueblo. Pueblo is a podunk town and we weren't even allowed off the plane, so we just sat there. It sucked. Finally they gave us permission to land in Denver, so we were on our way again.
Now, even if everything had gone smoothly, we were only going to have a 30 min layover in Denver, so making that flight was out of the question. The flight attendants told us that since no flights were coming OR going, our outgoing flight was probably delayed as well. We got off the plane in Denver and an agent standing by our gate told us we'd missed the flight & to go to the Frontier customer service desk. We hurried to the desk and GASPED at the horrendus line. 2 and 1/2 HOURS later, Jeff got to the front of the line. There was only 1 flight left and it was full, we'd have to take the first flight in the morning at 7am.
My problems with Frontier are as follows:
1. If Denver is their "hub", why do they only have 3 agents helping their customers for situations like these?
2. They were very unaccomodating. We had to book our own room at the hotel THEY chose, so we could get a 50% discount. They didn't give us a toiletry kit or even apologize for all of the inconveniences. I do realize they can't control the weather, but they CAN control how THEY handle and are prepared for these situations.
3. We had to take a shuttle van to the hotel. It was 30 mins away with NO carseats.
4. I was also frustrated because I have friends and family who live in the denver area that I could've called, had we not wasted 2 and 1/2 hours in line, that I'm sure would've come and picked us up. But we thought we'd be able to get on the last flight, which left at 11pm.
5. We got to the hotel at 10:30 at night. We didn't bring quite enough formula and diapers for an overnighter, so the hotel lady said there was a Walgreens down the street that closed at 11. Jeff ran there (in flipflops, at night, downtown) only to find they close at 10 NOT 11. He ran back to the hotel and the belhop felt sorry for him and gave him a ride to the closest grocery store.
-We went to bed around midnight and had to wake up at 4:30 to catch the 5:00 shuttle. We had no change of clothes, no toothbrushes, deodarant, etc.
-We arrived in SLC at 8:30 the next morning. Jeff was supposed to work that day and Alayna was supposed to have her 9 month checkup that morning. Those shouldn't have been a problem because we were supposed to get in at 7pm the night before. We went to the baggage office for Frontier because we knew our luggage wouldn't have been on the same plane as us. Their office was CLOSED. And we could see out suitcases through the glass door. It took lots of attitude on our part and 45 minutes for them to sent someone just to open the stupid door. Icing on the cake.
My poor little girl was exhausted and confused, but people kept commenting on how much of a trooper she was!
I have flown back and forth from SLC to Florida MANY times and have had MANY hiccups, and have even had to stay overnight like this before, in Atlanta. But never have I dealt with an airline that has been so unaccomodating and unhelpful.

A couple days later my mother in law said she saw on the news that Frontier is in serious financial trouble....I wonder why.

SOLD

Our offer has been accepted. I almost cried, and so did our realtor. She was just as frustrated as we were about things going so slow.
And now, I can go on vacation and not think about any of this until I get back!

update

Well, nothing has been established on that duplex. We aren't very impressed with the seller's agent, she has been hard to contact and not meeting deadlines, but we are still interested in the property! SO, we are still going back and forth with offers and counter offers. We are going out of town this evening and will be out of range for cell phones, etc. So I really hope we get this figured out today! We will keep updating!

Hopeful Homeowners

Many of you know that Jeff got a promotion in January that has made him commute an hour each way, back to the area we used to live. Right now we live in Bountiful (just north of Salt Lake), and Jeff works in the Provo area. Thankfully, we just live in an apartment and can end our contract at any time. Once school ended, we started seriously looking into moving closer to Jeff's work.

Well, this week we put in an offer! We decided to go a different route and hopefully purchase a duplex. We plan to live in one unit and rent out the other one. We will live there for about 2 years, then buy a house and hopefully keep the duplex. The duplex is in American Fork, an area we really like. It is perfect and we are just keeping our fingers crossed because the owner said we were the last people he was going to show the building to because he was thinking about just keeping it! We are hoping everything goes well, but I have to remind myself that everything will fall into place so I can't let myself get disappointed if it doesn't work out! We will find out soon and if things go well I will give y'all more info on the place!

Lion Country Safari...the Zoo part

My parents took Jeff, Alayna, and I to a nearby park called Lion Country Safari while we were in Florida. Inside the zoo part there are tons of birds, reptiles, a petting zoo, a water park, kiddie rides, etc. IT WAS SO HOT AND HUMID that day!
Jeff is feeding the parakeets
Feeding the giraffe their special cracker

Riding the kiddie ferris wheel

Jeff loved feeding these birds! They obviously loved him, too!

My dad loves birds, too

Dumbo Ride

The ugliest bird I've ever seen

I think flamingo's are way cool

Next I will post pictures of the other part to Lion Country Safari. You drive through to see the safari animals....lions, zebras, elephants, rhinos, ostrich, and lots of other cool animals!