Dad’s Weekly Report

Dear Family,

This has been a pretty eventful couple of weeks. Last week we finally got an offer on our house in Camas. The offer was very low but since we haven’t had any others come in we accepted it. Then we spent this week looking for a house here. We spent 2 days driving around with a real estate agent and more time just driving around. Wednesday afternoon we drove out to the northeast side of town to look at a couple of places that we liked the best. While we were there we found another house being sold “by-owner” that looked like what we were interested in. Thursday at noon we made an appointment to see it and really liked it. We called our agent who had left town to go on a vacation, he had another fellow in his office go with me to see it again in the afternoon then we wrote up an offer. There was another offer on the house but it was contingent on them selling their house so ours was stronger because our house was already scheduled to sell. Anyway they accepted our offer. The sale on our house in Camas is supposed to close on 16 April and we are supposed to close on the house in Flagstaff on the 28^th of April.

The place in Flagstaff is on the northeast side of town. My work is on the west so I will have about a 16 mile commute to work. There is about an acre of land but the land is pretty flat and arid not much good for growing garden or anything like that. There is a private water company in the neighborhood and it is a bit more expensive than city water. The house is landscaped with trees and some grass but now it all looks brown and barren. It will be interesting to see what it looks like in the summertime. The house is 1590 sq. ft., so quite a bit smaller than the last two houses we have lived in. It has three bedrooms, all on one level. We should have two empty bedrooms that you can stay in when you visit. It was built in 2003. It has an finished outbuilding, about 700 sq. ft., that is divided into two rooms, one is being used for a wood shop and the other an art studio. Here is a picture of the front of the house.  You can see more about the house at this website, http://www.flagdreamhome.com/.

So now I have to arrange for a mortgage, for the moving company to move our stuff from Camas, and all the other things that go with a move. We are planning on having Sandy drive our red car back to Camas, stopping off to see family on the way. Then I will fly back to help supervise the packing and we will both drive back to Arizona pulling our little trailer with all the stuff that the moving company won’t take.

Yesterday Sandy and I went to the temple early in the morning. It takes just a little less than two hours to drive to Snowflake from here. Before heading back we stopped at a local café for breakfast. Sandy really likes to go out to breakfast. When we got home we took the dog and went on a hike at the base of Mount Elden, about 2 miles. The trail head is just a couple of miles from where we live now. Most of the snow is melted now but we got to walk on snow on the north slopes and under trees. Still the temperature was near 60 so it was just right for a hike.

Well that is all the news. I haven’t been doing much else except going to work and coming home. Work is going well. This past week was spring break and so most people were gone and it was slow, a good time to take off and find a house.

Love,

John