Michael and Revel’s Cranberry Blog

We returned to Switzerland after spending several days in Paris. Michael and I took the train through the Alps and spent a night in the beautiful city of Luzern. The following day, we met up with Michael’s brother Daniel and his friend Craig at Grindelwald, a small village nestled up on a mountainside. The views were unbelievably beautiful and I truly felt I was in Heidi’s village. From there we traveled further into the Alps and spent a night at a hostel in Zermatt. We awoke the following morning with stunning views of the Matterhorn.

For a taste of our adventure check out our album.

Michael and I are here in Switzerland visiting his family. We arrived last Friday and spent a few days enjoying the beautiful country that is Switzerland. We also took a trip over to Paris where we spent our time exploring the city and eating French cuisine.

Check out the rest of the pictures in this album.

This past Memorial Day weekend Revel and I went down to Rochester to see the boat races and go to a BBQ at the Cutler’s. We had a great time and enjoyed the nice weather.

Waiting for the boaters

Revel and her baby belly enjoying the day

Check out all the pictures from the day in this album.

Our new house in Bellingham

After being without a house for a month, we closed on our new house last Thursday (April 30th) and are now living in the new house. With a lot of help from many friends (Thanks Steve, Marc, Todd, Dena and of course Revel’s mom Carolyn!), we were able to get set up over the weekend and are now sleeping in the new house.

The closing was not without it’s drama. We were scheduled to do a walkthrough on Thursday morning at 8:45 am and then go to the closing at 10. This timeline was fairly critical as we wanted to get new floors put in starting on Thursday afternoon. We were always worried that the previous owner would not have everything moved just because there was so much clutter in the house when we saw it. And are fears were realized when we got there and found nearly every room in the house still had lots of her stuff in it. Apparently she ran out of space with the movers and had gone early Thursday to find a rental truck. We knew we needed to insure she got EVERYTHING out, so at the advice of our realtor we decided to do a holdback on some of the money at the closing and not release that money until we were satisfied. Over the course of Thursday the previous owner was able to remove most of her stuff so by Friday afternoon I called the lawyer to have her release the remaining money. In the end it all worked out, but it looked a bit scary for a while there.

We had worked it out with the flooring company that they would start replacing all the carpets and laminate floors in the upstairs bedrooms and the hallway between the rooms. We had hardwood installed in the hallway (matches the existing hardwood downstairs) and that was started Thursday and finished early Friday. All four bedrooms also have new carpets (this was a compromise that Revel made for me….she wanted hardwood in all the rooms). So by Friday evening all the upstairs rooms was completed. Downstairs, there was one room that had carpet which has been removed and the existing hardwood is being extended into this room. This is being completed today. Finally, we are updating the vinyl floor in the kitchen with new vinyl and that should be completed tomorrow.

We had loaded much of our stuff in a PODS container, so Friday afternoon they delivered it and with help from Steve, Marc and Carolyn we unloaded it very quickly. Over the course of Sat and Sunday we were able to move everything in and get much of the boxes unloaded (We are very efficient!) My friends Todd and Dena came over Sunday afternoon to bring over a picnic dinner (Thanks!) and with Todd’s help we moved out the existing washer/dryer and refrigerator in preparation for the new floor in the kitchen/half-bathroom downstairs tomorrow.

Ultimately everything went very well and we had some great help from friends and are very excited about our new home. Thanks to our realtor Marie Dickson (who I STRONGLY recommend for anyone thinking about buying or selling a house this area – she is based in Franklin), we had a great home selling and buying experience. We’ll have more pictures soon once the floors are complete so we can give a complete tour.

Yesterday Michael and I went for a routine checkup at the doctors. Everything is going well and everyone is healthy. We spent a long time watching her dance across the ultrasound screen as the technician measured all her limbs.

Here’s a glimpse of her profile:

Time sure has flown by since our last post when we returned from our trip to California. In the meantime we’ve sold our home, moved out, and started on an addition to the family!

For the month of April good friends of ours, Pete and Audrey Johnson, have opened their home and allowed us to stay there while we purchase a new home in Bellingham, while the ladies (Tasha and Daisy) retreat at my parents.

We’re also experiencing the wonders of a new life growing inside me. To date I am 19 weeks along and so far so good. How am I feeling? Tired, hungry, and in a constant state of awe. We both feel so blessed.

Celebrating Michael’s birthday.

My big day… look at all those candles!

Daisy hoping to taste some of the celebration.

I’ve updated a bunch of pictures from our trip to San Francisco. Check them out in this album.

So it’s been a little while since I last posted about our house selling/buying adventures. A lot has happened, so let me catch everyone up.

After we showed the house a couple weeks ago, both showings went very well. We got an offer the next day. After some negotiations, we agreed on a price. Since then, they did their inspection and we had to deal with some minor issues but have since made it thru that hurdle as well. Last week, we signed the P&S and now we are mostly waiting for the appraisal and mortgage commitment. We have more confidence that this buyer will be good and feel pretty confident that all will go well (there was always some concern with the previous buyer).

So if that all goes well, we will be closing on the sale at the end of March. Of course we now need to find a house to buy. Revel and I have been looking at several houses over the last couple of weeks. As of today, we have not put an offer on any house but we have two houses we are seriously interested in. We are hoping to go back to see one of them this week (we saw it at the end of a 7-house marathon day and want to see it again) and unless some other house shows up in the next week or so, will probably put an offer in on one of these houses.

Thanks for your continued prayer in all of this. We’ll keep you posted!

Revel and I (and Revel’s parents) are taking a nice break from work/house hunting to visit San Francisco. The Ocean Spray annual meeting is out so it was a good reason to get away. We also got to visit with Revel’s grandmother and aunt. We come home tomorrow but it’s been a fun trip

The house hunt continues. Last week we finally got an answer on our house, and it wasn’t what we wanted. On Friday we decided that the buyer of our house was not going to be able to get a mortgage so we cancelled the deal. Unfortunately, this also meant we had to give up the house we were trying to buy.  So on Friday night we told our realtor to put us back on the market. We learned a lot about what to look for in a potential buyer, and hopefully that will help moving forward.

Well…things are moving fast once again. On Saturday our MLS listing was updated to “Back on Market”. That night we got a call to request a showing on Sunday. We had that showing in the late morning after church (took the dogs out for a nice hike – it was over 50 degrees!). Later that afternoon we got another call to request a showing for later that evening. Since the house was nice and clean, why not! So we headed out again for a little while.

This morning I got an email from our realtor and both potential buyers really liked the house (Revel keeps a good house!).  Later today she sent over an offer! Not exactly the price we wanted but it’s a start. We have counteroffered and waiting to see whay will happen. But the news is very encouraging.

Thanks for all your prayers, and we’ll keep you posted on all the house drama!