It was M's birthday (yeah! My baby is 7! I can not believe she is that old!). I remember 7 years ago, anxiously awaiting her arrival so we could relocate to Utah, something we had wanted and prayed to happen for 9 years. It was heartbreaking to leave our wonderful friends in TX, but we knew we needed to raise our family close to their grandparents and cousins. I know we were right--it has been such a blessing to be able to form close ties with our extended family.
Anyway, when M was born, it was such a relief. We got a contract on our home shortly after she arrived and we were off to UT. She was just 6 weeks old when we got here. It was the Monday after conference in October 2000. That started a whirlwind of house hunting (with a newborn). I had seen this beautifully bricked home on the internet and fell in love with it immediately. I told the realtor, Nan Dantz (an awesome lady) I saw this home online and wanted to see it. She suggested we see it first so I could compare it to everything I saw after that. I knew the moment I stepped foot in our home in Layton that it was the right home but Dilbert didn't want to commit to a home so quickly. I saw nearly 60 homes from Tooele to South Ogden but still loved the home in Layton. Finally, exhausted, I asked Dilbert if we could make an offer. He agreed and we called Nan. She called us back within a few minutes and told us that 2 other offers were made the same day. We crossed our fingers and prayed hard.
Nan called us back later that evening and said our offer, the last of the 3 three submitted that day, was the one accepted. It was LESS than the other offers (by $500) but they wanted us to have the home. Shocked, but thrilled, we quickly closed on our home and were moved in during a snowstorm on November 1, 2000. We have loved it here, despite the ridiculous driveway and a teenage driver having to learn to drive on Highway 89.
I later found out that they accepted our offer because we had a purple minivan. Years before I had nagged Dilbert about getting a minivan. We were expecting another baby soon and were soon going to have outgrown our Geo Prism (I loved that car!). We were worried about affording it, but after searching and searching, I finally found one that we could afford but it was purple--a color I thought was hideous (I hadn't seem the green one I would end up with later or I would have been happy as a clam to take the purple one). Well, when we went to see the house in Layton, we parked the purple van in front of the house and went to see other homes in Nan's car. Laurie, the next door neighbor, saw the van and thought it was the home's owners because they had the SAME VAN. She excitedly called them to see if they were really in town. She then realized that it had Texas plates on it so she told the owners about us seeing the house every day (yeah, I loved it that much). So when it came time to choose which offer to accept (after 14 months on the market), they said they wanted to accept the offer from the family with the purple minivan from TX because it seemed it was meant to be. When I heard that, I was amazed to realize that Heavenly Father knew we would need THAT van, 4 years later and made sure we had it.
I have known I was sent here to this ward, this stake, these schools, etc... for a reason. That strong knowledge has helped me through many difficult times when I wanted to pack it all in and move to Delta (okay, probably not Delta but maybe Kanosh because it sounds like a yummy Jewish dessert.).
