What a crazy great weekend. It feels as though too much has happened to have all fit in just 3 days.Saturday and Sunday we were up at Woodleaf for the annual youth worker staff retreat with our church. It was an awesome weekend full of fellowship, meetings, worship, fishing, frisbee golfing, relaxing, and blackberry picking.
Sunday was also my 22nd birthday. :) It was a pretty fun day full of surprises from my hubs and friends.
It started out with a surprise necklace made with a beautiful Lapis Lazuli gemstone, created by my very own Angelo Parisi ;)
This is it here :)
(minus the huge omega chain from the 80's, I got a thinner more modern chain to go with it)
Next, after lunch, I had found out that my dear friends had stayed up all night baking my favorite confetti cake cupcakes that Angelo had sneekily had Johanna buy the ingredients for. They came over to where I was eating lunch with a tray full of cupcakes with birthday candles and all singing "Happy Birthday" to me :) What a great surprise!
Then, Angelo surprised me with a sweatshirt that I had been wanting that I thought I couldn't even get. Hume Lake Joshua Wilderness Institute Honesty Purity Integrity Sweatshirt! Long name, but thats what it is. His good friend Robby had been working at Hume all summer and I guess Angelo had him sneekily get that for me too! :)
Then, as if that wasn't enough surprises...
When we got home from the retreat, he had his brother sneekily bring over my last surprise present, something I have been talking about getting since we got married 3 years ago.......
AN ORECK VACCUUM!!!!!
And yes, the 50's housewife in me was quite excited about this awesome gift! I absolutely LOVE it :)
We then changed out of our grungy camp clothes and headed off to my birthday party with my family. Mom made my favorite: Beef Stew, garlic cheesy bread and chocolate pudding for dessert :) Nom Nom Nom :) It was a fun night full of laughter, conversation, and Settlers of Catan.
Monday morning we woke up with a brand new fresh day to celebrate my birthday with just us two. We had planned to go to the blackberry farm or go on a hike, then head over to my favorite restaurant Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for a dinner of filet mignon, and lobster. It was going to be a great day :)
When we found out that the Blackberry farm was closed we decided to HIKE! Loch Leven Lakes! It's a 9 mile hike round trip with 3 lakes to see at the top of the mountain. Here are some pics of the trip :)
Beautiful Day for a Hike
Train Tracks
Me and my love :)
My Handsome Hubs
The lake looked too good not to jump in, but boy was it coooold.
As we were sitting on the rocks in the sun drying off from our swim in the lake, we got a phone call from our realtor Anthony. He finally got in touch with the new owner of the house we had originally been in contract to buy on Opal Crest and said "We have a short window of opportunity here, the new owner is willing to work with us to possibly sell you this house! Can you come down to meet us now??"
Now, mind you, we are in the middle of nowhere, half way to Lake Tahoe up the freeway, and on top of that we are 3.5 miles away from our car. But regardless, we immediately jump up and say "We're coming now! Cancel dinner, cancel everything we're on our way!"
So thus we start RUNNING down the mountain as fast as we can, jumping over rocks and branches, running over bushes and granite slabs, blowing my whistle to let the bears know we're coming so we don't barrel down the hill and startle them, haha, and what took us 2 and a half hours to climb up, took us an hour and ten minutes to run down.
We made it to the car and I frantically cancelled dinner, and mapped out how long it would take to get down to the house. We made a quick pit stop drive thru for dinner and ran by our apt to change out of lake water smelling clothes and rushed through traffic and made it just in time.
Out of breath and sore to the core from our crazy hike workout (our muscles were feeling what the adrenaline from the run was hiding now, oh boy) we walk up to meet the man who holds the key... to our house... well maybe our house. :)
He gave us a tour (I had totally forgotten what the house looked like since we had seen it nearly 5 months ago) along with modification suggestions to make the home more open and modern. He seemed almost as excited to sell us the house as we were to buy it. Good news, I hope.
Then we got the story that made me realize just how much of God's hand is in this:
The home had been stripped and was all ready for Home Depot to come over and install new carpet, paint the walls, and to make the modifications that would allow the seller to re-sell the home at a higher price. A price, mind you, that would put the home out of our reach.
Monday morning, the new owner wakes up to a phone call from Home Depot "your credit card has been declined"
"What? My credit card is fine. It's never been declined. Try again"
"I'm sorry sir, it's still saying declined"
So he calls his credit card company and finds out that he had a $45 balance that needed to be paid before he can use his card.
"That's weird. That never happens"
So he gets in his car and drives over to pay the bill so that Home Depot can come make the modifications. Once the bill is paid, it's a done deal, no returns or refunds, the modifications are happening.
Now, our realtor had been trying to obtain the contact info for the new owner for weeks now. Monday afternoon, he finally got the new owners phone number. So he immediately gives him a call.
The guy answers the phone as he's driving to pay the bill. If he had gotten the number 10 min later the house would have been gone out of our reach.
"Hold on! I have buyers that are ready to make a deal now."
And that's when he called us.
That night, we signed our official offer to the owner and now we await his answer. He is supposedly talking to his business partners today and will let us know soon! If he accepts, we go into escrow and will move in in 30 days!!!!
Lord Jesus,
If this is your will for us please make it happen soon!
We love you so much!
Jennifer
No comments:
Post a Comment