1st day of school 2016!!

So here we are in my dad's basement in Cowley.  Yesterday marks 2 weeks we've been here.  In spring of this year, Michael started hearing word of a possibility of a job for him in Lovell covering ER and walk-clinic.  At first I was excited for a couple reasons, one being that change is always kind of appealing and exciting, and it means moving out of our little condo and buying a HOUSE!  We started looking at houses pretty quick and found one on Zillow that was on Lane 11 1/2.  Michael said one of his brothers said it was sold, so we kind of forgot about it then I thought I'd call the realtor to find out for sure and it actually was available, so we went and looked at it along with a couple of other homes and decided it was our best option.  4 bedrooms, 2 baths, almost 3000 sq ft, beautiful, large landscaped yard and a minute from the hospital.  We made an offer and were under contract to close August 23rd and then about a week prior to that, the appraisal came back 23k below market value, so unless the seller dropped their price, we couldn't get it.  After weeks of the realtor sending comps to the lender to amend the appraisal and nothing coming of it, Michael and I scheduled an appt with the realtor and said we needed to make a plan and move on.  We proposed that the seller pay for another appraisal and we would pay the appraised value up to the dollar amount we were under contract to pay.  That afternoon the realtor called us and said no deal, they didn't want to pay for an appraisal so deal was off.  We started looking for rentals and the night we were pulling into a house to look at in Cowley, the realtor called and said they seller did want to pay for another appraisal after all.  UGH.  We weren't sure what we were going to do and are feeling really stressed at this point.  After lots of thinking though, we feel like even though we feel like we've been dragged along here, this house would be the best option for our family.  So the 2nd appraisal is supposed to take place today or tomorrow and we should get a report back 3 days following that.
We're grateful to dad and Brenda for letting us stay with them while we get this figured out.  It definitely isn't an ideal situation but life is like that sometimes!

It was hard to leave Billings.  Hard to leave our ward family that really does feel like family.  Hard to leave the YMCA where I got the best workout classes I've ever and had childwatch so that I could workout, the temple, the Billings Symphony Chorale, which I'm still going to do but will have to drive 1 1/2 hr every week but its worth it to me.  Hard to be used to living so close to everything and then being back out here.  The kids are loving school, they both seem to have great teachers, Stetson has Mrs. Newton and Kandace has Mrs. Hinckley.  Girls are supposed to be doing gymnastics and hopefully Stetson can do flag football soon.