Mall of America and Dangie

There are 2 kinds of Minnesotans (at least in the Twin Cities). Those who actually go to the Mall of America, and those who won't touch it with a ten foot pole. In our nearly 6 years here in Minnesota, we have made several trips to the Great Mall. Some were to take advantage of our family membership to the Sealife Aquarium (one of the perks of me being a teacher). But many of those visits were planned in order to meet up with our long-time friends Dan and Angie Leverence. They live north of the cities and we live southeast. It was usually a good "split- the- difference" location for us to connect. We rarely bought merchandise there, if we're being completely honest. It was more just a good place to meet up with friends, eat a meal, and walk around.

Tonight was our final trip to the Mall of America. More importantly, it was our last trip to meet up with Dan, Angie, and Tate here in Minnesota. We decided to make it a memorable one and take the kiddos on a few rides. You can see here in the video, that they were a hit with Addison.



Will we miss the Mall of America? Perhaps on a dreary rainy day we'll miss the ability to have an indoor "playground" to get away to, but I'm sure we'll find a new version of that in Indiana. What we WILL miss is the reason that so often drew us to the mall. We'll miss the wonderful friends we so often saw there.

We love you Dan, Angie, and Tate! Thank you so much for your friendship and involvement in our lives. It has been so much fun living near you these past 6 years!

Daddy Daughter jam session

Addison has shown a real interest in Daddy's guitar lately. Here's a little clip from tonight's jam session.



However, I'm not going to lie, she can be a bossy little thing at times, so it often ends (as this one did) with Addison shushing Daddy or telling him not to use his pick. And then telling him to use his pick. And then telling him not to use his pick. And then telling him to "Shh, be piet (quiet)." But until it gets to that point, they share some pretty sweet moments making music together. :-)

Guess what!!!

God is so good. He can do the impossible.

We listed our house to sell onTuesday, February 21st. Don't tell anyone, but we fully expected it to take a long time and that we'd have to sell it for far less than we'd hoped.

But guess what!!!

We had 3 showings that Thursday night and our first offer came in around 10:00 that night. It was pretty good but not perfect. So we sent a counter-offer the next day. And guess what!!!

They dropped out. Their parents convinced them they were already at too high of a price point. But then guess what happened next!!!

We had another showing that Saturday and 4 more showings the next day. And then guess what!!!

The perfect offer came in last Sunday night. They offered our listing price with $0 back for closing costs and no contingencies. So guess what we said!!!

We'll take it!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our home inspection was completed this past Tuesday and went off without a hitch. We're scheduled to close at the end of this month.

I've felt pretty strongly that God' s hand has been in this move for us, and the way He sold this house is just more evidence of that. Thank you God!