We have some news...

This post is a forewarning for what you'll read in the girls' monthly letters. By October we may be living in Utah! It has been a hard decision for us. We always thought about moving back but mostly I wanted to stay here because of my attachment to the house but also because of the life we've built here. After Brooke was born we considered it stronger but then decided to stay. Now that we have 2 little girls we decided now its time to try plus the move will be much easier now that the girls are young and don't have close friends or school to worry about.

The first step was for Jason to get a job in Salt Lake City. There are very few jobs as a systems engineer with a manufacturer, i.e. Cisco Systems (since almost everyone has heard of them), in SLC while there are quiet a few to choose from around the Seattle area. It just so happened that a company is looking to expand and wants to hire a team for SLC. During Jason's interview process with this company another company who is also expanding got wind that Jason was looking to make this move and they want him. As of today (Friday) nothing is official but we are expecting both companies to make Jason an offer! The pay will be almost what he makes here so with the decrease in cost of living in Utah it will be like a pretty nice raise! The hard part for Jason will be choosing which company.

The second step is to sell this house!!! As you all know we built the house from scratch and it just so happened we built right in the middle of the economic peak so all of the construction labor and materials were inflated. We were/are a little worried about what we'll get. We definitely know we'll take a loss but after our realtor got back to us this morning with his suggested listing price we were very relieved because its right in line with what we were hoping. Our asking price is well above what we owe so we'll definitely walk with equity. Once we actually get the house listed I'll post the link if you want to check it out.

So now we wait until Jason gets the offer(s) and a start date then we'll put in our notices at work and start packing! On one hand we think this is crazy to quit 2 goods jobs that we've been at for 5 years and sell our house for a loss but on the other hand we'll live by family and old friends and the bonuses will be SUNSHINE, a much smaller mortgage and yard to maintain plus I plan to stay at home for awhile! I never wanted to be a full time stay at home mom before but I'm going to give it a try for a few years. There aren't many jobs out there for me either and I my pay would be less. I like working for a city so early next year I plan to contact the cities around where we choose to live and let them know I am looking for part-time work in the future or would be interested in doing contract work for a brief period as their workload warranted.

Of course I'll update the blog as we get updates. Wish us luck!