Baby Showers & Big Decisions

No, the big decision is not about a baby. Last night I helped give a baby shower to a very old friend which was nice. Food, folks, & fun. I made the food: spinach dip in a sourdough bread bowl, lemon squares, mint brownies and chocolate-dipped macaroons--and someone brought fruit. yum. I like food. We played the Price is Right for our token game--I bought 11 baby items (pacifiers, infant motrin, diaper cream, etc.) and people had to guess the prices. It is amazing how all the little things add up.

Which leads me to our big decision. (Not really...just a transition-little things, big decision...weak, I know) After I got home from the baby shower I checked my email and we had an email about a house we've been watching since October. We even made a looow low-ball offer which was rejected, but have kept in touch with the realtor. The house is the largest floor plan in our current neighborhood with a quarter-acre lot (that is big for said neighborhood), is on a culdesac, across from a soccer park with some small hills for dirt biking and bushes for forts, is next door to friends in our ward who have a soon-to-be babysitting girl, it has a remodeled kitchen, fun pool with a waterslide and would keep us in our current elementary school which we LOVE with a capital L. Now for the cons. It overlooks the freeway. You can't see it because we are high enough over it, but it is close enough so there's noise and according to latest research, potentially-harmful-to-lung-development exhaust. Also not good for resale. It is an older house so the floor plan is not as open as I would like. The master bedroom is on the ground floor. I guess later this could be a pro, but right now when we are thinking of more babies that doesn't sound ideal. We could use the bonus for a bedroom and turn the master into a playroom, but I've gotten spoiled having a private bathroom attached to the bedroom. The bedroom has floral wallpaper, the guest bathroom is fuschia and downstairs has blue carpet. There is a bar in the kitchen but no place for a table. And the biggy. We feel the house is overpriced.

Reading this it seems fairly obvious that we wouldn't want to buy this house, especially in this market. The realtor said they got an offer which they countered last night but he didn't want to sell the house "out from under us."

So what's the hard decision? I guess it comes down to ward, neighborhood & school.

There are a lot of great areas with great schools nearby (and we want to stay nearby, close to work and family) but they are in much older wards. We are in one of really only 2 young wards in the stake. I love that Rachel & Sarah each have 20 kids their age at church. Poor Daniel only has 7. They have friends in their classes they've known since birth. That is fun. It is nice to have a lot of young families that you relate to.

The second is neighborhood. There is a new development just west of us that is in our ward and a lot of our friends live in. The houses are more expensive and the lots are smaller, but they are brand new, more square footage, and have open floor plans I love. We already use the new shopping centers, fitness club and parks (Daniel plays in the soccer league). But my friends who live there say it is like a ghost town during the day because there are mostly 2 income families. There are some serious mello-roos fees. The houses in neighborhood we live in now really can't compare. They are 20 years older. But the cheap HOA with the awesome club is a big draw. Nice gated playground, soccer fields, pool, raquetball, basketball, bbq, etc with a fun community feel. I know a lot of the moms and their kids and see everyone out walking their dogs, pushing their strollers, see them at the school and playground. Sometimes I feel like it is a hidden time capsule neighborhood and we've been transported back a few decades.

The third is school, and it seems to go hand in hand with neighborhood. The newer neighborhood has a new elementary school with a new principal. Two of my friends had such bad experiences they pulled their daughters out mid-year to homeschool. The classes go out to lunch and recess at staggered times, and instead of all the 1st grade classes going at the same time, the principal chose to mix up the grades...which I really don't like. There are big fundamental differences between 6 year old first graders and 10 year old fifth graders. And besides, they only get to interact with the 19 other kids in their class and so will have fewer familiar friendly faces in their class next August (I was going to put September, but we start school in August around here!) I haven't heard good things about the teachers and have only heard bad things about the principal. The sweetest lady I know, saintly mother of six, never says a bad word about anyone calls her policies "communist." Noone can earn prizes, she started out with noone can have personal property (pencils, crayons, etc) but soon had to abandon that particular rule...just some different ideas. I love the school my kids are in now. The principal is wonderful, with two of her own kids in the school. She knows the kids names and gives hugs and high fives. She is cancelling all day kindergarten (if she can get away with it--it isn't final yet) to use the resources for "impact" programs in math and reading to give kids extra help. Rachel did the math for a little while and it was Awesome. All grade levels are kept separate at lunch and recess. The moms I see at drop off and pick up are down to earth and in sweats, jeans, t-shirts & tennis shoes. Friends at the other school were so down on themselves as they compared themselves to the runway ready moms...I know--so many generalizations and stereotypes! I know that it isn't that clear cut, but that is really the feedback I've gotten from so many! A mom of a girl in Rachel's class isn't in our church and lives in a gated section of that neighborhood, and went to switch her daughter to the new school when it opened. After going she opted to keep her here because, in her words, "I don't want Sophie worrying about whether her clothes came from Target or Gap." First Grade! At dinner this week I was asked to help keep a friend grounded in the real world--she said she's counting on me and another girl at this school to keep it real, because that isn't what she is surrounded by.

I know there are great people everywhere. I know there are good teachers in every school. I know we could be happy anywhere. But...I think that even though we could get a bigger, newer, more open home with a brand new school, I would rather stay in our old comfortable down-to-earth neighborhood. I want to spend money on memories, and I don't need to make them in 3-4,000 square feet. But we would like a little more space, especially as our kids get bigger and we have more of them. :)

SOOOO back to the big decision about this house. Do we make an offer--again? Higher? Even if we think it is a little high? Do we wait for another house...the 4+ bedroom models are scarce, and on a culdesac with a .25 acre are even scarcer (is that a word?) We have some time. We could make our loft into a fourth bedroom. And it would buy us time to increase our savings, up earnings, have more investing time, etc. Because this will seriously increase our mortgage and property tax.

Decisions decisions. *sigh* I am so glad we aren't left to ourselves to make these decisions. I know we were blessed in finding our past two homes. This little one we've lived in for about 5 years now certainly didn't look ideal, but we fell in love with it and knew it was the one and we've loved living here.

So these are my inconclusive, stream-of-consciousness ramblings. We are meeting the realtor to look at the house tonight. We'll see if he'll leak what they countered, and go from there...