Though…there hasn’t been much activity as of late, so I doubt anyone will lose sleep over it. But within the next couple of weeks, there will probably be a TON of new stuff as we move into our new house!

In my last entry (over 2 months ago) I mentioned that we were selling the house, and after only one week on the market, we saw our first offer. After another week, we saw that one fall through. I said at the time that things might be a bit of a roller-coaster from that point…and I was more right than I would care to admit. Selling a house and building a new one is CRAZY!!!

It wasn’t one more week before we had another offer on the house, and this one stuck. The time-frame was such that the papers were signed and we were out by April 19th. During the weeks from offer to signing, we spent quite a bit of time our in Grantsville, deciding whether we wanted the larger lot with bigger house, or the slightly smaller lot with more close-knit neighborhood. Johanna and I decided to attend both wards (thanks for the suggestion, Dad) to see which one felt more like ‘home’ to us. And while it would have been nice to get a fancier home with bigger lot, in the end we felt more comfortable with the smaller one because the neighbors were more welcoming, the location was just a little more convenient, and we think that the kids will make more friends quicker.

So, with the decision to call Anderson Ranch our new home, we signed the paperwork to reserve a lot just a few days after closing on our old house. We split our time between filling out the new home contract and moving our entire family in to live with Aunt Amanda. She was nice enough to shuffle her kids around and make a bedroom available for us, but it was destined to be short lived. It’s not as easy as we thought it would be, getting 4 adults, 6 1/2 kids, and 3 dogs to all get along in one house (yes, Amanda is expecting in just over a month), so we decided living with her would be more of a pit-stop than anything. A lifelong friend of mine, Dave, has a house he is trying to sell in Magna, and he is letting us rent it for next to nothing if we will keep it looking nice for him (he lives 2 hours away and can’t realistically do it himself.)

That brings us to this past weekend. We called the builder to see what the status was on our new house, and the word was that the hole had been dug, and the footings were in place. The urge to drive to see our ‘hole-in-the-ground’ house was just too much to bear, so we piled the kids into the car and made a trip. Mom and Dad came along, and we got some great pictures of what will soon be ‘The House of Dodge!”

So that’s it, in a nutshell. Exciting stuff, and motivation enough to get off my duff and make another post here. I am sure that the next few weeks this blog will see much more action, as it is a lasting way of keeping tabs on this huge life-changing experience!

So we put it up on the market. Within one week, it was under contract, and within another week that contract fell through. It might be a little bit of a roller coaster for the next little while.

Next, it has been a crazy time keeping up with Glen as of late. He has decided that he is no longer just content running around the house. He has discovered he can climb! Much like my sister Rachel as a child, he finds himself little areas where he can crawl in and hide. And like his cousin Isaac, he has also learned what light switches are, and since he has discovered one he ca reach, he runs there every chance  he can get. And Grandma Evelyn will be pleased to see that he has good taste in soda.

James is getting more and more independent, and doesn’t listen very well at the moment. When we try to offer correction or explanation on why he can’t do something, the response is usually “That’s not fair!” or something similar. Hopefully he will grow out of it soon.

As for Aiden, he is doing better and better with his reading, which has been a struggle since day one. He is getting to be a very big help around the house, and since he will be turning eight in a month, he has also been doing more with the Scouts when Johanna is in charge. He’s excited for the Pinewood Derby coming up, and for the camping trips he has been promised this spring by Grandpa Dodge.

All in all, it’s been pretty eventful as of late, and doesn’t look like it will slow down any time soon.

As luck would have it, the DVD drive in this new computer was too much for this DVD to handle, and as soon as it got up to speed, BLAM! There’s this loud noise and the kids immediately started denying any wrongdoing (I hadn’t even accused them of anything…I wonder if I should be?)

Well, I guess the DVD was the problem, not my media center drive. So I took out the drive from Brian’s computer, put my own in it so he would have a working drive when he took the computer home that evening, and set to work dismantling the drive to rescue it if I could.

Here is some footage of what I found.