Our House!!!

(Car not included, but the plants are!!!)

We have a house! A real, live house! When we matched at UCSF, this was not something I thought was even in the realm of possibility. We both feel that finding it was a miraculous process, so for the sake of recording the miracles in our lives, here's the (very long) story. 

Our original plan was to go to San Francisco for a few days sans enfants while we house hunted. Brad's mom graciously offered to watch all three of our kids. I had enough milk pumped that we were fairly certain it would be fine. However, a couple of days before we left, I got really anxious about leaving Kate (8 months old at the time). She wasn't taking a bottle well at all and I was afraid this trip would ween her and I was not ready for that. So even though Brad thought she'd be fine and nurse again when we got back, he very kindly agreed that we should bring her. This had the potential to make the trip harder in every respect, especially for him because now I wouldn't be able to drive the truck out with him because car seats aren't allowed in moving trucks. Luckily Brad had a friend that is starting residency in Sacramento who drove out with him so he wasn't alone in the truck. 

A few months earlier, my sister-in-law's parents heard we had matched at UCSF and offered to let us stay with them while we looked for housing. They were so helpful - from feeding us meals, to allowing us to fax things to different landlords, they were amazing! They made a very stressful time much more manageable. Their kindness helped both of us feel that the Lord is watching over us in this move. 

Once we arrived in Orinda, we got on Craiglist and started setting up appointments to see every apartment listed in our price range in the areas we wanted to live in. We saw many, many dives. A few of them only had "utility kitchens", which meant no oven, no stove, and sometimes no sink. When Brad asked about an oven, the realtor pointed to the counter and said, "But there is a microwave OVEN". Yes, we are familiar with the wonder that is the microwave, but it can't cook my bread. Those apartments quickly got the boot, but basically every other apartment we got an application and talked over how we could possibly make those tiny spaces work for our family. The apartments were shoddy, and we had some crazy moments (Kate blew out all over one sidewalk and I had no wipes all while we were waiting for AAA because we'd locked our one set of keys in the car), but mostly we were still optimistic at the end of the day. 

Toward the end of the second day we were less optimistic. However, I suggested an apartment complex in the south of the city that looked nice and we headed down there. At the same time I called my parents to update them on situation. My mom said (another) pray for us after we got off the phone, and it produced a miracle. The apartment we saw there was great! It was a little more like suburbia, which was different than we'd expected and they offered us a 2 bed/2 bath for the price of a smaller unit. There were many perks about this place (pool, etc.). One of the best things about it was that they'd let us put $50 down and keep it for 2 weeks. This completely took the pressure off - now we felt we could look for a few more days, but if we didn't find anything we liked better that was closer to Brad's work, we'd still have a place to live. That same night we also found another great apartment right next to the VA that was by far the cheapest one we'd seen. We felt like we had options again. 

There were still several considerations floating around in our heads. One was about a house in Pacifica. It's a city about 20-30 minutes south of San Francisco. It would have meant a significantly longer commute for Brad, but a suburban lifestyle and house for me and the kids. Brad found a house there on Craigslist that looked amazing. But before we could see it, we found a great apartment in the city - it was new, had 2 bathrooms (a HUGE win in SF), good eating area and common space, and the owner immediately offered it to us. That is somewhat unusual. He got out the papers and was ready for us to sign right then. Fortunately there were a few things we needed to do before we could sign, so we promised to meet up again the next day. When we talked about it after, we both felt wrong about it. That feeling continued as we prayed about it. We couldn't understand why we felt that way because on paper it all seemed so good, but we called him later and backed out.

We thought it was maybe because the house in Pacifica was the right choice for us. However, when we got to that open house it was VERY clear that the owner would not choose us. We were not nearly blue collar enough for him. He kept telling us that a doctor wouldn't like this neighborhood. We felt pretty bummed out by that. We were driving back to the city for 2 more open houses. I really didn't want to go. Then the first one of the open houses we went to was our new house!

I walked in (without Brad because he was parking) and I kind of started freaking out. You walk in up a beautiful wood staircase into a whole house. There was a huge living room with French doors into a beautiful dining room. There is another smaller eating room right off the kitchen - a kitchen that has lots of cupboards, a dishwasher, and BOTH an oven and a microwave oven. There are two huge bedrooms and and a sunroom or possible third bedroom and 2 bathrooms! After seeing all of this, I started frantically texting Brad saying that I was IN LOVE with this home. Brad came up and also fell completely in love. He went into the sunroom and found a sweet little Vietnamese lady watching TV. Brad, who loves all Asians, went into full Asian charm (I love how his Chinese personality comes out with Asians - it's such a great side of him) and started talking to the lady. It turned out she was the owner. She really hit it off with Brad. And then she met Kate. Kate was our silver bullet. Lisa (the owner) was obsessed with Kate. I should state here that Kate is a terribly charming baby. She has literally no stranger anxiety and reaches for people who smile at her. She pulled out all the stops with Lisa. Lisa held her for about 20 minutes and told us that we were the people she wanted to rent to. She wanted to keep seeing Kate and she wanted Brad to be her doctor. (She'll come back to her basement apartment every two weeks for a day or two to keep going to her temple.)

Unfortunately it was not all said and done yet. Her daughter and son-in-law also had to approve. The realtor told us she'd let us know on Sunday.

On Saturday we went to our new ward's picnic and fell in love with the ward. The bishop checked with the stake president and he said we could attend that ward even if we lived in the apartment in the south of the city (technically not in the ward boundaries). Brad felt fine about that, but I felt nervous about not completely following the rules. :) But we both really wanted to be in that ward. So many people had reached ougt to us already. We went to church there on Sunday and the opening hymn was my dad's song. It just felt like it was meant for us. 

Then right after church the realtor called and told us we did not get the apartment. We hadn't met the daughter and son-in-law, and they were nervous about having three young children in their mom's home. I accepted it, and felt sad, but moved on. Brad did not. He called her back and asked if we could offer to pay rent upfront or something. Holly (the realtor) called us back a little bit later and told us that Lisa was insistent that it be us. She wanted to meet our children to see that we'd take care of her home. We couldn't do that, but we showed her pictures (they hold still so much better in a picture - haha) and she was okay with that. More than anywhere else, her home felt like she was looking for someone to be a steward over her home instead of just looking for renters. She's lived there for 20 years and she has really created a good feeling there. It came out when we were meeting with her that Holly had instructions from the son-in-law to show the house again after rejecting us, and Lisa came back from her temple and during this and told Holly to stop the showing because she had picked who she wanted to live there. It all felt so miraculous!!! Honestly, I'm not totally sure why we are the recipients of such a huge blessing, but I am VERY grateful for this home. I really feel like this is where we need to be. It's so close to Brad's work and the park and has a backyard and parking and storage space. It's just amazing!

The ONLY downside is that it's not available until July 1, so Brad had to start work in San Francisco by himself. The kids and I miss him so much!!!