Mike & Heather Stratton and Family

So admittedly, things have been a little busy and getting info posted for our fictional readers fell down a few rungs on the priority ladder. To recap - we closed on our house in Silver Spring, MD - got all of our utilities, insurances, etc. all squared away for when we move in (at least we’ll have internet out there, FIOS by the way, I’m excited), I took a day trip to Las Vegas, packed up my office, and we just picked up the Uhaul this morning and are packing everything up today getting ready to leave tomorrow morning.

We’re planning on making a little vay-cay out of the trip. We’ve never been to Mt. Rushmore, so that’s on the to-do list. Also, we’re going to spend 2 nights in Nauvoo (I’ve never been there either). And plenty of driving.

I’ll try and get some updates as we go along, but we are planning on arriving at our house sometime on Friday. We’re getting our internet/phone/cable installed the following Monday, so updates may have to wait until then. Regardless, we’re excited for the move and looking forward to making the trip out.

Hopefully my years of conditioning my rear end by sitting behind a desk all day will have prepared me well for the long driving that is to come Can’t be nearly as rough as flying to Bangkok in coach, right?!?

See y’all on the other side!

And my memory card in my camera crapped out. I had to do a low-level format to bring it back to life so I lost all my photos

Anyhow, Bangkok was fun but I sure am glad to be home.

We should be closing on our house soon.

So we are trying to get in at least a few things that you really should experience in Utah before we move, and Timpanogos Cave is one of them.

The entrance to the cave is atop a pretty steep 1.5 mile hike. There is even a sign warning people that have heart conditions that the hike may be too strenuous. We took a moment to reconsider, but there was no backing out as we had already paid our money to take the tour

The hike up is entirely paved, and you can go at a nice leisurely pace. The kids did fantastic and are excellent hikers. The path takes you through some man-made little tunnels and has some breathtaking views of the valley.

Once we got to the top, we waited our turn amongst the wildlife that hang out at the Cave entrance foraging for food. Mckenna said it was the first chipmunk she’s seen in her life.

Once we were inside there are tons of awesome formations and plenty of things to look at. And I eventually figured out the noob way of taking photos inside caves, so we got a couple pretty cool shots.

There was certainly a bunch to see. The caves are pretty big, but it’s a nice tour that’s paved, has hand rails, and stairs.

Highlights of the cave are certainly the bacon strips hanging from the ceiling, and I love the caramel gooeyness here

but the most famous formation is the Heart of Timpanogos

it’s a massive formation almost 6 feet tall and estimated to weigh over 4000 pounds!

Anyhow, the entire tour of the cave took about an hour. We had a good time getting some excersize hiking up and back, and seeing one of the coolest caves around!

I travel a lot for my job, and sometimes I get to go to some pretty cool locations. Rio de Janeiro was one of them. If I ever have to leave the country as a political fugitive or something like that, chances are good that I’ll change my identity and move to Rio. It was one of the most breathtaking cities that I’ve ever seen. And I only spent about 3 hours seeing it.

Yeah, sometimes my job really stinks. It was nonstop work from the time that I arrived ALMOST until the time that I left. If it wasn’t for the help from my colleagues onsite, this would have been the only photo I took in Brazil…

So, I won’t bore you with the details of my job. It was just a bunch of early early mornings and late late nights. I can’t complain too much though as one of the aspects of my job was to handle the access control into a concert. This is Jota Quest, and apparently they are a big deal in Brazil.

The concert was a lot of fun, and the music was pretty darn good. But the venue I worked at all week and our hotel really weren’t too close to any of the real activity in Rio. Plus it’s winter there, so by 6:00pm it is pitch black out so even on the nights that I could get out sort of early, it wasn’t conducive to see anything.

I couldn’t believe that for the first time since my mission being back in Brazil, that I wasn’t even going to get out and see anything but this…

So, long story short, my last day there we hurried and packed up our equipment as quickly as possible, and I picked up a cab and told him that I had 2 hours to see Rio and I at least needed to see the Christ statue Cristo Redentor. So on our way to the statue my driver drove me around to see a couple beaches, we stopped by barra de tijuca where a bunch of famous Brazilians live. He took me to the pria de Sao Conrado which was awesome. There are a bunch of beautiful mountains nearby that had hang gliders jumping off the top and flying down to land right on the beach.

Then we drove past the Favela da Rocinha which according to my driver is the largest ghetto in Latin America. And I believe him, it was HUGE. There wasn’t a good angle to get a good shot, and he said that we really shouldn’t go driving through there, but that there are roads and they have everything that they need although it just blows my mind. The favela went clear over the other side of the mountain too. It was impressive to see.

Then we stopped at a place where we could see the Ipanema beach far in the distance and the Christ statue way way up at the top.

That took a little over an hour from the arena that he picked me up from, and we were losing daylight, so we hurried up as fast as we could. There is a little tram that you can take from the bottom that is more scenic, but since we were pressed for time I just had him drive me up as high as he could.

And here he is

You ABSOLUTELY need to come up to the top if you come to Rio. The view was absolutely spectacular. You really can see almost all of Rio from here.

And of course the obligatory photo in front of the Jesus himself

As you can see it was getting really dark really fast. We made it up there just in time. It was so beautiful, and beautiful at night. But not very good for pictures

So after taking in all the scenery, I felt fulfilled and happy that the trip hadn’t been a complete waste of time

However, my driver said that no visit to Rio would be complete without first going to the Copacabana, and he was right. The beach was HUGE, and so much was happening. Tons and tons of hotels, shops, restaurants, and tons of beach. It was definitely the place to be and there is no question that if I am able to make it back at all, that I will schedule at least a day to hang out at the beach and see all the activity. It’s too bad that it was too dark to take any pictures and that we were pressed for time. But undaunted we went on to at least take a look at the Ipanema Beach which was surprisingly really close to the Copacabana. Definitely worth going back to visit.

All in all, the scenery in Rio was breathtaking. In just the few hours that I got to drive around, there was so much beauty, diversity, and amazing sites that I couldn’t believe that I might not have been able to see ANYTHING! However, there is a chance that I may be able to come back in December, and if that pans out, you’d better believe that I’m going to plan a vacation. At least for a couple days

Wow, ok - things have been a bit crazy-go-nuts lately. Where to begin. So yeah, it looks like we aren’t going to get our first pick for our house in MD. No pink kitchen for us. Unless a miracle happens, which in real estate anything can happen, but we aren’t counting on it.

We have an offer in right now on our second choice, and we’ll see what happens. I’d really like to fly out and meet with the inspector before we finalize everything. We have 10 days to do our inspection, but I’m on my way to Brazil at the moment so that may make things a little tricky.

Man, getting to Brazil…. I didn’t realize that you needed a visa just to get into the country. I found this out on Monday of this week, so late Monday night (actually early Tuesday morning) I was on a red-eye out to Miami to pay a visit to the Brazilian Consulate. They were the only ones in the nation that could turn around a visa request in 2 days. Every other consulate was at best 4 days out, and usually 10 - 20 business days. SO, if you are planning a trip to Brazil anytime soon, make sure that you give yourself plenty of time to get your visa.

So I figured, fine - hang out in Miami for a couple days - no biggie. We’re just finally closing on our house, I am way behind on work, but I can bust out my laptop and get a TON of uninterrupted work done. Well, no such luck. My laptop had been acting up earlier that day before I left, but usually a reboot would take care of it. No go this time. When I plugged in my laptop the CPU would go to 100% of load and everything came to an absolute crawl. The only way that I could get my laptop to turn on was if I unplugged it and ran on battery. No biggie right? Well, I only got about 3 hours of work done until my battery totally died, and when I plugged it in to get some juice, it wouldn’t charge SO, I left it plugged in overnight, and it charged up 6% of the battery. So there I was in Miami, no car, nothing to do, laptop dead, it was raining outside so I couldn’t walk anywhere. All I had was the TV. And then came the electrical storm. Knocked out the satellite signal at the hotel.

Awesome

Anyhow, I spent hours on the phone with HP technical support, and they were no help. I didn’t have many resources to troubleshoot, but I did figure out that it was just a faulty power supply. Nothing I could do still until I got back from Miami. I did get lucky and was able to hold the power supply in a certain position and was able to charge the battery to about 45% on the last day I was in Miami. It was great.

So yeah, I finally did get my visa. No issues there, and it is good for 5 years so that’s nice.

Get back home, find out that our house in Riverton has indeed sold, money has cleared, we’re officially homeless.

We got the word about our house #1 that the first buyers are moving forward with their purchase. They did a home inspection and it’s in their hands now if they want to back out. Really unlikely, but hey, you never know. We’re not planning on getting that house, but honestly we had a really hard time getting excited about our house #2. Yesterday we got the counter to our counter and it is a good deal for the house. But we had already emotionally moved into house #1 so it was quite a challenge to make the transition again.

However, I’m not going to make any more posts on the house situation until things are FINALIZED. It’s such a huge emotional rollercoaster, that I have no desire to do that again just in case things don’t work out with #2.

So, I’m in transit to Rio de Janeiro and quite excited actually. I mean, it’s the worst possible timing with everything that we’ve got going on, but it’s Brazil! For those that don’t know, I served an LDS mission in Manaus, Brazil a little over 10 years ago and I’ve never been back. Who know’s how much portuguese I’ll remember, but I’m going to find out in almost a day! I hope to be able to get out at least a little and do some site seeing.

I’ll definitely keep you posted about that!

Ok, so we officially got their addendum back and things look good, at least there is no reason for concern or alarm that we can see. They don’t appear to have any problem with their financing or anything, and the only thing that is impacting us is that instead of having everything wrapped up on Monday next week, it will be finished on Wednesday. And they bumped up their earnest money as an act of good faith, so you can’t go wrong with that.

Apparently the reason that they are going FHA is because it saves them about $400 a month on their monthly payment. I’d do the same thing if I were in their shoes!

Here’s to crossing our fingers that everything is squared away by Wednesday.

Ok, so here is a bit about what is going on with our move and such.

We found a couple houses in MD that would work out great for us, but we do have a favorite. All I can say is… pink kitchen.

And as much as I LOVE the pink kitchen, that isn’t the reason for jumping on that house. Really, the layout of the house is fantastic. It’s going to take a lot of work to get this house up to speed, but we should have plenty of time for that. And when the house is done, it’s going to be awesome! Anyhow, we really like this place a lot, and if we end up getting this house, you had better believe that more details will be forthcoming about it.

But yes, there was one little hitch. When we were out in DC and decided that this house was the one, when we went to write up our offer we found out that there was already an offer and a counter-offer on the table. So, yeah - here begins the first of the freak-out sessions. Long story short, they weren’t too thrilled with the first offer and it hadn’t yet been ratified, so we put in the best offer we could and we have a verbal confirmation that they are going to accept our offer.

Eventually.

Just a minor detail about the seller’s agent not wanting to get sued, but there shouldn’t be any worry about that.

We hope.

SO yeah, we found a house No. 2 that we are happy with and can make it work for sure, and put an offer in on that one. They countered, and we still need to counter their counter, BUT…

The people buying our house threw a small wrench into the mix. We signed our part, and assumed that they would be doing the same yesterday, however, they decided that instead of going with a conventional loan that they needed to go FHA. Fine great, whatever. Basically just puts us back to square one and gives them an opportunity to back out. Or maybe they are having problems with their funding. Either way, it isn’t a good sign. We got this information just AFTER we moved everything out of our house. So, they need to get an FHA inspector out and assuming that all goes well, they should close sometime next week.

We’ll see.

So because of that, if the funding doesn’t go through or whatever, well, we’ll freak out a bit more, and then I think the plan is that we’ll ask for an extension on house No. 1, and tell house No. 2 that we won’t decide anything until we figure out what is going to happen with our house.

Just some minor freak outs. No biggie, right? It would have been nice to hear that they are mixing up the funding BEFORE we moved out of our house, but hey… what can you do?

So, we do have most everything moved out of our house. Just a few odds and ends, and some cleaning. But we have plenty of time for that.

We are staying with my parents for about 6 weeks to hopefully save some money and get used to living in cramped quarters before moving out to DC

My parents have been fantastic and very accomodating, and it’s been a lot of fun so far staying here.

We’ll see how dispositions are at the end of our stay

But that’s about it for now. Oh and just for fun - the night before we leave… my Xbox decides to give me the Red Rings of Death - joyous.

So, today - we are closing on our house - waiting to hear back on our first offer we put in on a house in Maryland. Putting an offer on another house in Maryland. And trying to pack as we are moving out of our house on Wednesday.

We’re a little busy.

Hopefully today, we’ll at least know which house we’ll potentially be moving in to, and I’ll post some pictures up.

We are very excited to go house hunting this weekend! I hope that we have some good luck. Now is the time to buy (or maybe in another 6 months when the market REALLY bottoms out) but hopefully we’ll still be able to get lucky and find the perfect place at the right price.

My buddies Will and Miriam was kind enough to let us stay at their place and use Miriam’s car while we are out there. Yeah, they are the best.

Wish us luck!

So, we went to Lagoon on Wednesday, and the kids had a blast. Mckenna said that it was the best day she’s ever had in her short life. I think we need to get her out more often

We started the day out with getting the kids on the few rides we could before we spent the rest of the morning and afternoon at Lagoon a Beach. By far the kids favorite ride was one called the Dragonfly, which swings and spins you around. They loved it.

However, we have the seemingly perpetual issue of getting the kids to branch out and try new adventurous things and I did everything I could to get them to try something new. There was a ride called the Egg Drop, where you sit in an egg-like seat, they lift you up and then drop you and repeat at various speeds.

I successfully got Corbin to come with me with a bribe of a strawberry shake (his favorite) and he screamed the entire time. He calmed down a bit after he had his shake, and who knows, perhaps when he sees the photos he may even remember fondly about the experience?

Anyhow, when we got to the water park the kids had a blast playing on the kid slides, hanging out in the lazy river, and wading till their heart’s content. They easily could have spent all day in there.Spencer, Angie, and Mary came to join in the fun for a bit too. We all got plenty of sun and are feeling it!

We decided to head into the Pioneer Village to get some dinner, and had hamburgers, cheeseburgers, bbq ribs, chicken, pulled pork, and corn on the cob. We met up with the Barkers and they had dinner with us, and we all had fun yelling at the kids from trying to chase and feed the geese. Who knows how much goose poop they stepped in.

The Barkers were fantastic. They tried pretty hard to help get our kids to branch out and ride some more adventurous rides. Tony, Mason, Ethan, Corbin, and I went on the Log Flume. Yeah, we got pretty wet, but hey, they did it! That was about it though, it was back to the kiddie ride section for the rest of the night. But not before Tony roped me into riding the Samurai. I’m proudest of the fact that I was able to hold down my sushi

We had a blast and hopefully the kids have some good memories. I must say that the kids sure did branch out more than ever, even if not as quickly as I would have liked. But they are getting better! I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time until they find that one ride that just sets them off and we won’t be able to keep up with them, or hold down our sushi.