BLANDING!!

We made it to Blanding! We got all of our stuff unpacked at the ABF terminal in Salt Lake on Monday. Chris and I continued the journey with our UHAUL the same day and, with the help of our new ward, were moved into our rental by 8 pm that evening. It was a really long day, but all went well in the end! Our new house has its charm... Realtors would title it a "charming fixer upper!" The house is just SO old that it can't help but having a few weird quirks to it.

For example this hole is in the kitchen floor. After investigating for awhile we have decided it must be the old dryer outlet... all the air and dryer fluff (technical term) ended up in the basement I guess...

This is our extremely creepy basement. There is one door into it and out of it. I hope to never be forced to enter it. Chris said it isn't that bad... but he often lies to placate me.

This picture is of the washer hookups that are also in the kitchen. I really wanted this rental for the simple fact of washer/dryer hookups so I shouldn't complain about the condition they are in! The only reason why I complain is to voice my concern over the stability of the floor under the washer. When our washer is on the spin cycle the kitchen floor MOVES A LOT! The years of water damage have most likely taken a huge toll on these floors. Our washer just might become a new addition to the basement :)

Here is the view of our home. It has a beautiful English walnut tree out front and apricot trees on the side. Our landlord is really nice and the house overall is great...

...but what if we could buy a home? The home pictured below was built by the college CEU, which means it is a good deal for a brand new home in Blanding. Since labor, transporting materials, and lack of contractors adds to the price of homes in Blanding, this is a steal of a deal. We never thought we would be buying a home at the age of 23! As a first year teacher without tenure I am also nervous about my job, getting used to Blanding, and Chris' future career. What if something takes us away from Blanding and we struggle to sell the house (something we've been told isn't hard to do)? What if we HATE Blanding and want to move? What if I suck as a teacher :) and I am not offered another contract next year? What if, what if, what if...

We put an offer in for full asking price with the seller paying closing costs last week. We just found out that they rejected our offer... It is so stressful making such BIG decisions!

Yesterday we made our first trip to the closest Wal-mart. It's in Cortez, Co which is about 1.5 hours away from Blanding. The drive going to Cortez wasn't bad at all, but the drive home was horrible. We got there in the evening and had to drive home during the sunset. We saw beautiful skies and rolling hills, but we also saw all of the deer crossing signs warning us we were driving in a deer migration area. We saw 2 dead deer in the middle of the road on our drive home alone! I was really nervous because I didn't have my glasses, but we made it home safely! I don't think we'll be making it to Wal-mart again for awhile.