Never a dull moment around here

Ugh. The flu has run rampant in our house this week, and today it was my turn. After cleaning up puke all week, I figured I would come down with it eventually. There's nothing like getting the flu to make me grateful for my health.

Today is my Mom's birthday! Happy birthday, Mama! My Grandma Palmer is flying to Utah to spend the next week at my parent's house. I haven't seen my Grandma since I moved to Missouri 5 years ago.

The girls had their first swim meet this week. Lindsey spent most of the time crying, because her coach tried to put her in 4 events. I got her out of 2 of the events, so she would be happy and still have fun. Both girls did a great job, and Brynlie even beat her backstroke record by 4 seconds!

Logan is almost completely potty-trained! Last Sunday in Sacrament meeting, he was waving at his friend, Dominick. Then he turned to me and whispered, "Does Dominick wear diapers?" When I said "no, he's a big boy," he said "Oh. I'm a big boy too. I'm not a baby." Apparently a little peer-pressure was all that was needed to get him motivated. The next morning, I put underwear on him, and he was very upset the first time he peed in them. From that moment on, he has been going to the potty ALL BY HIMSELF. No prodding needed most of the time. He has still had about one accident a day, but he's even been dry at night most of the time. I'm seeing this light at the end of the 12-year diaper tunnel!!

Brevan started golf lessons this week. He enjoys hitting balls while the girls are at swim practice in the morning. I am so incredibly grateful for the awesome Country Club perk that Ryan has with his job.

Yesterday afternoon, Brenda called and asked if my kids could go over to play at her house. Woohoo! An afternoon alone! I told her that I might go watch a house auction that was on the steps of the County Courthouse. I have been researching a certain house for a while, but it was way out of our price range when it was on the market. I kept tabs on it when it started going through the foreclosure process, and noticed it was being auctioned off yesterday. It's beyond my dream house. In fact, it's too big and even has a pool in the private-oasis-of-a-backyard. We have no desire to ever have a pool at our house. But anyway, I've been wanting to see how the auction process happens here in Missouri. We have done the whole process once before, when we purchased our blue house in Lehi, UT at an auction. It's a long, often complicated process, but it can sometimes work out amazingly well. I have copied all the public documents possible for this house, finding out such things as the fact that they have 2 mortgages, and which banks hold the loans. Call me crazy, but I find this stuff really fun, even if we don't end up purchasing the home. There's something fun about stretching my brain and obtaining information that many people don't know they can access. Back to the story . . .I went to the auction. And I "kind of" bought the house. Suddenly I became a type-A personality, when I noticed all the business men with their briefcases looking at me like I was a stupid woman who didn't know what she was doing! But the auction also started very low and there was only one other guy bidding on the house, who was wearing a "First Missouri National Bank" shirt. After the opening bid was announced, it was "going . . .going . . ." and I yelled out my bid, much to the surprise of myself and all the other men present. So the bidding commenced, and I was getting more and more assertive as I watched all the men (there were no other women there) roll their eyes, and whisper to each other. How dare they! OK, I will admit that I didn't COMPLETELY know what I was doing, because I soon realized that the auction process is much different here in Missouri than it is in Utah. I won the bid. Ha to all you arrogant men! And then quickly started saying some not-so-nice words in my head, as the reality of what I had just done sunk in. But I was NOT going to let any of the business men see my concern! I already knew that if the winning bid fell through, there was no penalty and the house would be re-auctioned. What I didn't know was that the whole amount of the winning bid would be due in full exactly one hour later. In Utah, we had to give the Trustee $10,000 within an hour, and then we had a day or so to procure the remainder of the loan. Well, I acted like getting the full amount of money within an hour was no problem at all, and walked back to my car, with the eyes of the arrogant men staring at me. I immediately called Ryan and said, "Um, you know that house that was being auctioned today? Well, I kind of just bought it." He quickly left his meeting and said, "Uh . . .WHAT?" I explained the procedure, and he told me to call our mortgage lender, who is also a good friend of mine. I drove to his work while talking with Pam, to try and figure out if there was even a possibility of making this work. She asked me questions such as, "Did you sell your house already?" To which I answered, "Uh, no." We were having a good laugh, but also trying to get the ball rolling as quickly as possible. We had already been pre-approved for a new loan, but she wasn't exactly able to give me the money within an hour! When I got to Ryan's work, we walked into his office and he got on the phone with the County Trustee that I had just been dealing with. I kept whispering to Ryan that I did NOT want to look like an idiot to all the men that were at the auction, so he needed to make me sound intelligent. Hehe! Ryan would whisper back, "I'm trying my best, but honey, you DON'T really know what you're doing!" Ryan had been researching the house with me, so he knew that the auction amount was an incredible deal, but he was a bit concerned that I had suddenly purchased it without him. I guess most wives don't just purchase homes without their husband's knowledge! He did keep telling me that he was impressed with my gutsy-ness, and my ability to live on the wild side. It's kind of known in our marriage that Ryan is the risk-taker, and I'm definitely not.

OK, this story is getting too long. So the house went up to auction again the hour later, and the banker obviously won. We contacted him and said we would like to purchase the home directly from the bank, if he was willing to give us a great deal. The bank would then not have to deal with the work of fixing up some things before re-selling the house. We have a meeting with him on Tuesday, but we are fine with walking away if he doesn't give us the deal we want. We've set our price limit (which will include the second mortgage, which hasn't yet gone all the way through the foreclosure process) and won't go over the amount. We will see what happens at the meeting, and then might need to make drastic measures to sell our current house quickly. The previous family has vacated the foreclosure house now, and left the back door unlocked. We've gone over a couple times (shhh, don't tell) and walked through every room carefully, so we know exactly what we are dealing with. The family did some "stripping" of the house, including taking the fridge, microwave, media room system (which was amazing; dang), some curtains and one bathroom mirror. But they left all the light fixtures and the house is still in amazing shape, albeit dirty. So there's my story of living on the edge. Ryan can never blame me again for not being spontaneous!

That's all the latest news of the week. Just never a dull moment around our house!