Life's Lemons.......

When life hands me lemons.......I cry until I can't see straight.

........and that's what I've been doing for the last 3 days.  If you see me out and about, with my puffy red eyes...just turn around, and pretend you didn't.

So....8 years ago, at the height of the housing market (before the crash)...we bought our first house.  It was Chad's mom's house (who decided about 5 years ago not to be a part of ours or our children's lives, so it's okay to say what I'm about to say....)  

She was in financial crisis, and begged us to buy her house, and help her get out of it.  In the 3 years she lived there, she had COMPLETELY ruined it.  His drug addicted half brother had drawn upside down crosses and pagan symbols all over it, painted windows black, and put 1000's of staples in the walls and ceilings.  (We should have known RIGHT THEN!)....it was disgusting, and dirty, and needed a crazy amount of work.....BUT.....

 We bought it anyway. 
It was such a huge, neat place....lots of built in character...a bar and a wine cellar.....and a huge backyard with a pond.....and SO much potential.  We were young, had a new baby, and thought we'd achieved the "American Dream." We were so proud.

Then we moved in.....

and it had this weird smell......

and we all started getting sick.......like ALL the time.

It was MOLDY.  It NEVER should have passed inspection.

You could stick your finger straight through the sheetrock, and when we pulled all the carpet up, it was dripping with water.  It was flooded.
How in the HELL did it pass inspection?  HOW did we get stuck with a house that was making us all sick?

We spent a lot of time feeling sorry for ourselves, and THOUSANDS of dollars over the next 6 years, remodeling the ENTIRE house, room by room...little by little....piece by piece.  My parents and Chad's parents helped us too.....trying to make a healthy place for our kids to grow up. 

Then, about 3 years ago....Chad and my Dad remodeld our kitchen.  They tore it down to bare studs....replaced the walls, floor, ceiling, electric, cabinets, appliances, and even added a bathroom to the laundry room!  My mom and I picked out flooring, tile, paint colors, and all the girlie touches!  
It was finally a place we were proud to call home. I'd wake up happy, and proud of all of the work we'd done.  And we looked forward to living there for years to come. (Yes, I'm crying as I type this.)

THEN.......
(*insert the musical notes..."DUN, DUN, DUUUUN....")

Last September, Chad and I came home from an all expences paid Pampered Chef vacation to Nashville, TN to find that our house had flooded yet again.  The carpets and walls were soaked, and made that awful squishing sound under your feet as you walked. And in just the week that we'd been gone, the black mold had started to creep back up the sides of the sheetrock.

The smell was something I can't even describe.
You couldn't take a deep breath without coughing, or feeling winded.

We had to get out.  We had to get our kids out. We couldn't breathe.

With the weight of the world on our shoulders, and the pressures of trying to figure out where and how to relocate our three small kids.....we walked away.

The housing bubble had burst years ago, and left us with a huge mortagae and a moldy house that was worth NOTHING compared to what we paid/owed.  
It was a hard decision, financially speaking....but an easy one, knowing we could no longer live in a house that was making us sick.  The reality is that we never fully got rid of the water problem, and it was always dank, and damp and moldy.  No matter how much remodeling we did.  Who knows what long term damage the mold did to our lungs.

So..........we found a beautiful rental house in Battle Ground!  It has palm trees in the yard, plenty of bedrooms, an office for my Pampered Chef business, a HUGE bathtub in the master bedroom, walk in closets, built in storage EVERYWHERE, and is in walking distance to Annaliese's school!  The ceilings are vaulted, it's open, and sunny, and HAPPY!
And the best part......?

It's DRY!
There's no mold, everything is new....and if something goes wrong....we just call the rental company, and they come fix it! It's like magic!
We were SOOOOOOO burned by buying that house, that I'm not sure I'll ever get up the guts to want to buy again.

We. Are. Happy. Here. 

Again.....insert the "DUN, DUN, DUUUUUUNNNNN......"

Thursday we got the WORST news.  Again.
Apparently the owner of our house hasn't been paying his mortgage with our rent check every month.  God knows what he HAS been doing with it.....But now he's doing a short sale on our house and 

we. have. to. move.......AGAIN!

I feel like we've absolutely failed our kids.  Especailly Annaliese.  She'll be in 3rd grade this year, and will likely have to move schools again.  THREE schools by THIRD grade. That's not fair.  And it's not the stability we wanted for her.  
Everything was perfect here.....she walks to school everyday, has a BEST FRIEND who lives NEXT DOOR, and we love her school!

Tristan starts kindergarten this fall, and we were SOO looking forward to watching them walk to school together on the first day! 
So yes, we're freaking out...and crying...and feeling sorry for ourselves.....

But we are resiliant. We are a family who loves eachother unconditionally.....and God has a plan...he always does.....wish I could figure out what we have to do in this life to have just a normal....BORING....life.........but we'll be ok.  Right?

So the search begins.........another perfect house is out there waiting for us.  Comfort and stability are in our future.....lightning can't possibly strike the same family THREE times, right?

I can't wrap my mind around moving again.  I haven't let it sink in yet.......Packing and un-packing...organizing and re-organizing.....ugh.  Here we go......another adventure awaits the Danner family.