Signing on the Dotted Line...Times TWO

We finally know just a little more about our future.

We’ve known since January of 2011 that Ryan didn’t get tenure (huge downer), and we’ve been in a holding pattern until now. We were fortunate to have another year of employment at the University of Virginia to give us time to look for our next job. We knew that before the summer of 2012, two things would have to happen: we needed to figure out our next job and sell our house. Both of which make us really sad since we have loved living in Charlottesville.

We divvied up the assignments. Ryan would work on finding the job and I would work on selling the house. It’s been a long 16 months. And in the end, we both closed our deals on THE. SAME. DAY. Well, at least verbally. Closing deals is a little trickier with 8 hour time differences and no access to office equipment.

Mine was a process of 15 months and 3 weeks of fixing, de-cluttering, cleaning, and renovating. This was followed by about 8 days of giving it over to a realtor--and we have a contract for our asking price (with us paying closing costs).

One of the reasons I planned this Europe trip was so that we wouldn’t have to be in the house while it was on the market, since we weren’t sure how long it would take to sell. We arranged things so that the day after we left, the realtor would go to work and have it on the MLS by the following weekend. It’s a great way to sell a house.

Ryan’s journey was a little more complicated. There have been doors open and close, and a long process of waiting for things to make sense and feel right. We have had so many generous friends along the way and colleagues of Ryan’s who have been of great help and very gracious.

In the end what we’ve been lead to is a one-year visiting position back where we started 15 years ago: BYU. We’ll be going through the job market process AGAIN next year, but for now we’re going to appreciate the fact that we get a year to live by family and friends, enjoy the mountains, watch some BYU sports, and have Ryan get to work with great colleagues (which he’s been blessed to have at every place he’s worked).

Now that our house is pretty much under contract, we have a closing date (June 19th). We don’t get back from Europe until May 31st, and we leave for the Outer Banks (North Carolina) on June 17th. The kids will be in school during the first week we get back, and then we’ll have one week to have to enjoy Charlottesville before we move our things out and leave for the beach. And then we’ll work our way out west.

I haven’t decided yet what form that will take. I need to wait and see how this trip goes to see if our family can do more life on the road or if we will need to get to a permanent residence ASAP.

Between now and then, I will finally put some thought into finding a place to live in the Provo area. Any opinions for those in the area? We have one kink when it comes to housing: Scout. He’s a very cute, and very furry kink.

He’s living with my sister in Boise right now (I gave my sister my dog, and she gave me her daughter, Megan). So on our way out West, we’ll be picking him up. I know that rentals are a little trickier with pets, but we’ll just have to hope for the best.

So far, things seem to be working out--so we’re hoping this one will too.

But for now, we’re going to celebrate a little--by going to Paris tomorrow as a family. Hopefully it will be a smoother day!