...And That's a Wrap

This year finished up with the sale of our Morning Vista house, which closed and recorded on December 29th, 2017. With the entire year revolving around buying/selling/moving/renovating, it is nothing short of miraculous that, after almost eight months, the house is finally off the market. That chapter is closed. Relieved doesn't begin to describe how we feel. When we bought the Sunnyside house, Dylan recognized that, while it was exciting, the more exciting real estate transaction would be the sale of Morning Vista. I agreed with him 100%. We are so grateful to be ending 2017 on this note. We've spent over eight years at Morning Vista, and the story of that life journey is one to stand alone for when we actually move. (Right now we are leasing the house back from the buyers until the end of January.) For this post, I'll just stick to the year in review.

Here we are toasting to the closing of our house!

While I would never recommend being involved in two real estate transactions, moving and renovating during the holiday season while shuffling all the duties of regular life, I would do it all over again to get here. I don't deal well with being busy...I am so run-down right now. I caught the virus that everyone else seems to have, including my kids, and it has knocked me flat on my butt since Wednesday. Could this be the actual flu? I can't remember something that has made me feel so awful from head to toe for such a long time. But it has also forced me to slow down and take a breath, and it has made me a million times grateful for our eventless New Year's weekend.

If I had to sum up the year in short, it would be The Year of Finding Hope. I can remember a time, just less than a decade ago, where I was showing up to work every day at a job that I hated. Like, I hated it. I would cry before I had to go to work. (I'm not even a crier!) I had student loans to pay off, and I was making a decent paycheck in a crashing economy, so I really had no options. At that time, I was hopeless. I was miserable, and everybody knew it. (Not the finest time of my life.) I would drive home and think about how completely and utterly stuck I was. I had a lot of growing up to do back then. I didn't know about letting go of things that I had no control over and valuing things that are actually important in life. I made it worse for myself, but I didn't know any better.

Of course, things changed and improved. Life evolved, as it tends to do. And then a few years later, I found myself with a tiny baby and was totally swallowed up by new motherhood. Not really in a good way. I was an anxious mess, and the baby was, too. He cried a lot. Dylan traveled a lot. Like, A LOT. He flew charter, and he'd have to leave on long trips with no notice. We couldn't make plans to do anything, ever. I almost came unglued. I think I'll always be a little mentally and emotionally fragile from that. I still have issues relaxing. During that time, I was hopeless. Like before, I would drive home with a crying baby and think to myself that I was completely stuck. Everything was so, so hard, and I had no hope that it would ever change.

But...the baby got a little older, and Dylan's job slowed down. Eventually he got a new job that was 85% more family-friendly. Things were so much better. Then, 2017 rolled along, and I knew it had come time to close out our chapter on the outskirts of town and rejoin civilization. We cleaned up and fixed up the house and then listed it. We spent every second shopping real estate on the MLS. It consumed everything we had, and we endured a lot of disappointment. 

Like the other times, I had no reason to hope that things would work out for us. Time kept passing, we kept lowering the list price, and we still weren't getting much action. The difference this time was that I held out hope anyway. I had my weak moments, but I did my best to let go of control and give it all over to God. I made a decision to trust in His timing. It was the only thing I could do, really. By the end of the year, all the good stuff started to happen. Things came together in ways I never could have imagined possible. This journey was the biggest test of patience and the most impactful time of personal growth that I've ever known. It took a long time, and it wasn't easy, but I am forever grateful for the lessons that this year has taught me and for the way it has all unfolded.

2017 was a year of trials and miracles. Nobody is the same person that they were a year ago, but I'm substantially different than the Lu of 2016. (Better, in my opinion.) Parts of the last year were really hard. Not tragic or awful, but hard. And here we are thriving and stronger than ever. Unlike during those other hard times of life, I am not coming out on the other side of this feeling rattled and angry and lost. I am hopeful, grateful and trusting, and my focus has been readjusted so that I now put energy toward the things people in life that really matter. It's a better way to live, and as I recognize how much good has come from this past year, it also makes me realize how much more I have to learn during my time as a person living here on earth.

And with that, I'd say that with the closing of the year and the closing of our house out in the boonies, that this is a most appropriate time to say good-bye to the blog, Boondocks Boulevard. I've been writing about all things real estate over in another space for some time, and I've been working my tail off the last few days to get the new blog reveal-ready. It's not quite there yet...but I'm sharing it with you anyway while it's still under construction. Bear with me while I get the pieces of it together. I thought about keeping separate blogs for the house renovation and for my family, but I'm not going to do that. If you're interested in one thing but not the other, I guess you'll have to do your own filtering or maybe find a new family blog to call home. As much as I love to hear about people reading my blog, I'm not so short-sighted that I fail to recognize it for what it is...a passion project that is really all about me. As such, I'll do what I want and tailor it how I see fit as it progresses. I hope you like it, but if you don't, I love you anyway!!!

So please, join me over at hello, Sunnyside. It has a long, complicated web address for now, but in a few weeks, it'll be hellosunnyside.com. I bought the domain name at GoDaddy, and they have a waiting period before you can transfer it to another host...so, just bookmark the site for a couple of weeks, if you care to follow. In fact, I'm pretty far behind in updating the content there, but I'll try to get on that this week. I will scale down the number of photos of my kids, but you'll still see them there, for sure.

I truly hope that everybody reading this right now is wrapping up 2017 by thinking about events from the past year that made them smile. From a worldview stance, it wasn't a great year. I know we can all do better as humans and make this planet a better place to be. I think a good start at that would be to seek gratitude and to be kind to one another. I haven't had the mental space to think about resolutions for 2018, but I'll start with those. Happy New Year!

Just a Little Too Magical

I finally had to wave the white flag. Christmas, of course, was all things magical. But we may have overdone it. We went to bed early on Christmas Eve, planning to catch up on some much-needed sleep. The boys, however, had other plans. After months of never hearing a peep from either of them at night, they both woke up several times, starting at 10:30pm. Gavin had an ear infection, and Graham had a really awful croupy cough and rapid breathing. We were both up with both of the boys at different times. I bounced from our bed, to the guest bed by Graham's room, to Gavin's bed, back to the guest bed, and back to Gavin's room. We probably got four hours of broken sleep. Not the ideal way to start Christmas morning.

The excitement of opening gifts was enough to power the boys through the morning, but they started to fade after that. My cumulative sleep deprivation made me feel like I was living in an alternate universe, and Dylan was not at his best, either. By the time we made it to my parents' house in the afternoon, the boys were in rough shape. Gavin told me several times, "I'm having a hard day." We had to call it a night pretty early, and we were all buckled in the car by 5:30pm. The boys were both snoring in their carseats minutes later.

Christmas Day may have been kind of a bust...but the season on the whole was really awesome. The older the boys get, the more fun it becomes. We kicked off Christmas Eve with the 9am service at church, which was amazing. The boys enjoyed the train ride, petting zoo, face painting and pictures with Santa afterward. Then, the Jordans and my parents came over in the afternoon. The boys played happily while the ladies drank wine, and the guys did whatever guys do. Our feast was incredible, and Elaine even brought cookies for the boys to decorate for Santa. Graham climbed up the couch to reach Santa's designated glass milk bottle on the shelf and then chucked it on the floor. We hoped Santa was okay with going without milk at our house, but we did leave him two cookies. Gavin sprinkled the "reindeer food" that his teachers gave him outside, and then everybody cozied up for a long night of not much rest.

Train ride at church!

Crafts with friends from school.

Little monkeys!

Sad, croupy baby

The reindeer food is ready for the reindeer!

Opening a shared gift on Christmas morning.

Christmas Day- don't we look [the opposite of] healthy and rested?

I guess it's always a bit of a relief when Christmas is over, though I do always mourn the passing of the excitement and adventure that the season brings. This year, though, I'm pretty spent from a very full month, and I'm only looking to the future. We've got adventures on the horizon, and we are going full force ahead. I went to work the day after Christmas, and today I've started taking down decorations. We've all caught a sickness, and now with the house half-decorated, I'm taking a break and getting off my feet. It's starting to hurt everywhere...and the last thing I need is to be bedridden. Here's to hoping this New Year finds you and your family healthy and happy. We are ready for a productive weekend and can't wait to find out what the New Year will bring!

'Tis the Season

It has not slowed down here, but we didn't expect that it would. We're busy because our life is full, so we're tired but we're smiling. In general, I wouldn't recommend closing two real estate deals, starting to move and planning the details of a home renovation over the holiday season...but we have been fortunate in every way. The timing makes things complicated, but this is just how the pieces came together. So far we've been able to fit in everything we wanted to do for the holidays, and this Christmas should prove to be just as great as ever!

Today has been our only free day with no meetings or plans on the agenda for probably this whole month. We did a lot of packing and a lot of narrowing down plans for renovation materials, and we stayed in our pajamas for a long, long time because we could. It was heavenly. The camper trailer has been packed full of bikes and all the large recreational things from the garage, and it is now parked comfortably next to the casita at the new house. It fit like a glove in it's new spot, which is just another reason why I believe that this house was meant for our family. We sold a washing machine on Craigslist while we were over there and took care of a few other odds and ends, and then we took the troops south to Mesa.

While searching for a place to eat before checking out the lights at the Mormon Temple, we stumbled upon a park full of food trucks. It was right across the street from the Temple, so we walked over after finishing our various steak sandwiches, mac and cheese, etc. I'd always heard about the Temple lights but had never, ever been. Of all the Christmas festivities we've done this month, I think I've enjoyed this night the most. If you've never seen the lights, it's definitely worth the trip. It was such a nice family outing.

Taking selfies while D put the cover on the trailer.

Little mac and cheese monster!

I'll back it up right now and review the week that we just completed. D took off on Monday, and I had to work in the morning, so the boys kicked off the week with my parents. After that, our week proceeded in the usual way. I did take the boys on our own little Christmas light tour on Monday night after visiting with some out-of-town cousins at O.H.S.O. I found our light tour to be less fun than when Dylan is the guide, but it was still worth the effort. I know the boys enjoyed it. G and I visited his school for his class Christmas party on Wednesday morning, and we stayed out all day until we finished swim class in the afternoon.

Bubble baths at Nonna's house are their favorite!

Christmas crafts with Nonna!

Gavin cut out, colored, and pasted the wheels on this car. We have quite the crafter on our hands.

Opening his Millennium Falcon, a gift from Grandpa for his birthday.

One stop on our Monday night light tour.

School Christmas party

This little goofball was more entertaining than the swim lesson.

Dylan made it home in time on Thursday to get the boys from school and then took them directly to Chick-fil-A. They were so happy to see their dad. On Friday morning, they all went down to the gas station for donuts and made it back home pre-7am. I was thankful for the time alone at home, even if it was just a half hour. Then, I was off to the new house to meet with various people while Dylan stayed back with the boys and took care of the fun job of having our septic tank pumped.

From there, Gavin and I made it to an early get-together at John and Fran's house for an epic pasta making session. Fran had her daughter and sisters-in-law over to stuff noodles and make ravioli in preparation for their Christmas festivities, and she was kind enough to include me. I had a great time and brought home a pan of the delicious pasta, myself. Gavin was super shy around the other kids but eventually opened up to John and turned into quite the chatterbox. He told John, "When we move to our new house, my lucky little brother will get to sleep in the bunk bed with me. " I did a full 20-minute session in their state-of-the-art massage chair, and eventually we made it home in the mid-afternoon. We took a second trip out in the early evening for grocery shopping and errands, and then wrapped up the night by stopping at our favorite neighborhood for Christmas lights. I enjoyed the light-viewing experience a lot more from the passenger seat.

Pasta makers!

My two little turkeys giggling their hearts out all through Safeway.

But the highlight of the night was watching the rocket blast off from Vandenburg in the western sky. We were putting the kids back in the car after checking out some Christmas lights when Dylan saw it blast off and told me to look. I didn't know whether to be excited or scared. Was it aliens? Or a missile/nuke? He caught the whole thing on video. Our minds were completely blown watching this occur, but the other people walking around the neighborhood didn't seem too fazed by it. He sent the video to his buddies who confirmed the SpaceX rocket launch from LA in a matter of minutes. So, basically, it was a dream come true for Dylan to witness this because he holds a special place in his heart for Elon.

And that brings me to today...which has already been reviewed. We have a fun-filled couple of days ahead of us, and I plan to enjoy every minute. Best wishes to all for a very merry holiday.

Happy and Exhausted

My brain power is minimal, my body is weak and my wrinkles are deep. But, we are all smiling over here. We had Dylan home this week...the only week this month with him at home. He was swamped with things for work, and we were like ships passing in the night. Luckily we got out together for a Christmas party last night, otherwise we might have forgotten what each other looked like.

In the meantime, I've kept busy packing boxes and making trips to the new house with a car load of stuff every single day. I've almost filled an entire car bay in the garage, and there's still so much left to do! I've exchanged dozens of emails between the contractor and designer and the doors/window guy, and we all spent most of the day together on Friday making plans at the house and shopping for things like light fixtures and slabs of stone. I've hit up the floor store and the paint store on my own, and the contractor and designer have a plan together with the cabinet people. Things should start happening soon! I'm working on a blog where I'll just post about renovation details so we can keep this space about the usual family stuff. In the meantime, follow me (@hello_sunnyside) on Instagram if you care at all about the goings-on with the house.

A round of backyard golf for D and Brian for practice. Photo from the lookout deck on top of the casita. Come and play some time!

Pool fence coming soon!

A random Monday night swim class.

Winter Wonderland for the third year in a row. We love it!

Brrrrr, it's snowing.

Practicing for his birthday!

While I've been doing that, Dylan's been making arrangements for repairs on the Morning Vista house in preparation to unload it! He also had two training programs and a volunteer event for work. So, he figured that now was as good a time as any to have Brian fly in from LA for a couple of nights and play a round of golf at the TPC. The boys had a blast with Uncle Brian, and we all enjoyed his homemade pasta!

We did two swim lessons to make up for missing a lesson last week when G was sick. I've worked my usual schedule, and we went to Winter Wonderland on Monday night to see the lights. On Thursday night, I went to a "Favorite Things" Christmas party with some of the other moms from Gavin's school. Saturday morning was Elaine's cookie party, so the two Gs helped me bake a double batch of eggnog cookies so that we could have some extras to give away to teachers and friends. And Saturday night was the company Christmas party...for both of us. But we stuck with Dylan's work crowd because, well, that's what we wanted to do. We started at Morton's and ended at Pattie's, and the boys hung with my parents.

Dylan took on all three boys by himself on Thursday night after Shawn got a last minute trip so that Elaine could go to the girls' party. The boys loved having Luke at the house. Super Dad!

Megan's "Favorite Things" party

Aly, Elaine and me

On Friday morning, my mom took the boys to the park to celebrate Graham's birthday with donuts. Kristin and Pierce met up for the fun, too! D was working, and I was at the new house all day getting some plans in place, but they had so much fun and even got up close and personal with a garbage truck!

Waffles at home for the birthday boy!

Singing to the birthday boy at 6am!

The garbage truck driver let the boys take turns getting in the truck.

Cousins!

Birthday boy!

Opening gifts with Nonna and Papa.

Birthday party with cousins at night! This photo makes me laugh every time.

We love our birthday boy!

He loves Elmo and Mickey Mouse!

No shortage of people to assist in unwrapping presents.

The racetrack that Guinea got him is already getting a lot of traffic.

All decked out at the cookie party with his school friends.

Elaine had these little tables set up for the kids to decorate cookies while we did a cookie exchange and had lunch. So fun!

Thanks for a fun morning, E!

Leaving the boys with my parents to go to the McD party.

Working hard on crafts with Nonna

Throwing a fit for Nonna because he didn't want to wear his crafting apron.

The biggest thing of all this week...GRAHAM turned 2!! Our incredibly feisty, full-of-life, little lovable, smiley, tantrum-throwing yet sweet boy isn't a baby at all anymore. He's talking in 4-word sentences and singing and making his brother (and all of us) laugh every single day. He hardly ever walks because he runs to just about everywhere. He is loved at daycare, and he is such a delight to everyone he encounters. He keeps me on my toes every second. Goodness gracious, Graham brings such a special dynamic to our family. He says "I love you, Mommy" without being prompted and gives great, big kisses every day. Seeing the special relationship unfold between Gavin and Graham has been my greatest joy. My heart bursts when I think about Graham and his great, big grin. His birthday really deserves a special post on its own, but that won't happen this week. I promise to do an "All About Graham" once we get through the end of the year. To celebrate his birthday, we had family over to our house on Friday night for pizza, cake and gifts. It was the perfect celebration for our big 2-year-old.

I'm exhausted just re-capping the week. I've never gotten so little sleep, besides of course when the babies were small. I'm not ready to start the grind. Dylan will be gone all week, and I feel like Christmas has really gotten away from us. My hope is to drive around with the boys to see Christmas lights some night this week, since we haven't fit that in yet. It's my favorite Christmas-time activity. I have a room full of gifts that have yet to be wrapped, and a bunch of grocery shopping to do for the festivities ahead. I cannot wait for Christmas morning, when I can lay around in my pajamas and take a day off from packing and doing all things house-related. In the meantime, though, gratefulness abounds, and we are busy but feeling blessed beyond measure. Merry Christmas!