{"id":2724,"date":"2016-09-30T13:05:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T20:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/?p=2724"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:10:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T22:10:52","slug":"2016-august-and-september","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2016\/09\/30\/2016-august-and-september\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 – August and September"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hey!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

August. what a month. Things quieted down on traveling. We had all but given up on getting the house in Mesa – or anywhere for that matter. Then on one of the websites, we were tracking homes on (we used realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin) we noticed that the house in Mesa appeared again as a new listing. hmm, what happened there? We contacted our realtor to see what he could find out (yes the same one as before because we had already seen that house with him it would be very difficult to go with someone else and to avoid any legal ramifications we just had him follow up on it). Turns out the previous offer had fallen through. We pushed to see why and it turns out that the roof was once repaired and the people making the cash offer was wanting to have the roof replaced (or something to that effect). We let our realtor know that we were still interested in buying the house. We let him know to inform the seller that our offer was still standing and that we were interested. The first image was taken from the MLS listing for the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of the house drama, we got some VERY cool photography nights with big storms and lots of lightning strikes… you can see it below. One photo is just a beautiful evening with lots of rainy roads and storms still rolling in. Makes everything pop. The next photo to that is the big bright and purple one. You can see cacti in the shot and everything. Yes, I know you can probably see some pixelation on it. Mind you this was a still photo taken from an iPhone 6 back in 2016 so overall I am still impressed with the quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last photo on the block below is a picture of the fireworks that we saw during the “Faith and Family” night that the Diamondbacks hosted. They had a guest performer – Matthew West. The same person who retweeted\/Instagram’d Ara after her birth and garnered some 10k likes. Anyway, we tried to message him to see if he would meet up and take a photo with the now much bigger girl we had, but he couldn’t be reached. I have to admit we were disappointed by that – but still enjoyed the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Later on, in the next month, we went to Tempe Town Lake for Labor day. I’m not sure if they still do, but at the time we went, they would decorate the area with tons of Flags for those who died in the line of duty. There was a candid shot I captured when this woman from the Army was going to each one and saluting. It was a nice gesture. You can see that image below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this same time, we were also looking for a new mattress. We decided to hit up the local mattress shops and any big regional retailer as well. I kid you not, we walked into the Mattress Firm and saw this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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Sleeping, on the job.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

He was the only one in the shop. So we walked around the store and tried to be a little loud to wake the guy up but he simply wouldn’t. Eventually, we just walked over to him and woke him up and it was funny, he was drooling on the pillow and the mattress, so here’s this kid waking up, and wiping his drool off of everything while trying to talk to us. What a sight to be seen – we did NOT end up buying that mattress or any here- but I have to guess it was pretty comfortable!??! I mean, it had to be right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News on the house!? They ACCEPTED OUR OFFER! We were so through the roof with excitement. We worked with Wells Fargo (as Amex had some kickback with them so that we would get a better interest rate). Side note: Wells Fargo and American Express share the same origin story. You can look it up if you’d like, but essentially split sometime later and became two different companies. At the time of working at Amex, I felt this made WF a sister company, more-less, and just made sense to go with them. Below you will find some photos of the paper signing of our first house, as well as the sold sign. (We had them put the “Sold” on the sign specifically so we could take these photos, they were going to just take down the sign but we wanted to capture the moment). Look at Ara our little big girl. Fun fact: those same Jordan shorts I still have (and am wearing today (in July 2022) as a matter of fact). I rarely get new clothing and they apparently last me a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that it?! No! As you can see from the photos below we got another surprise. Think of this: we didn’t expect to get a house, so we bought a new car, upgraded our phones a few months before, AND then we found out that our prayer had been answered. We were pregnant!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tempe Town Lake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Paper Signing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ara & me<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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New Car, New House.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Ara and mom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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New baby?!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We really did not expect that last part. Pregnant? New House? New car? New Phones? All within a couple of months of each other? You have got to be kidding me, I wouldn’t believe it if it didn’t happen to me. Also, it was a little funny to be honest, because we had thought that in the 3 bedroom house the one extra would be an office or a guest room. We had wanted to have a place to let family or friends come and visit – well those plans were mainly on the back burner as we had to change our plans due to the news we didn’t think we would get. This house was also an awesome location because not only was it on the east side (the only side we ever really wanted to live on) but it was also walking distance to Central Christian Church (0.5 miles away).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a year 2016 turned out to be. wait wait wait, it’s only September?! What else could possibly happen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

just Pray<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

note: this post was published on 07\/22\/22 but moved the publish date back to the end of September 2016 to keep chronological order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey! August. what a month. Things quieted down on traveling. We had all but given up on getting the house in Mesa – or anywhere for that matter. Then on one of the websites, we were tracking homes on (we used realtor.com, Zillow, Trulia, and Redfin) we noticed that the house in Mesa appeared again…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/pics.jpg?fit=1040%2C780&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6561,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2022\/03\/31\/2022-march-part-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":2724,"position":0},"title":"2022 – March part 3","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"March 31, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"After finishing Knotts, we took a day to rest before we started our drive back home. We were a little motivated to get back because the Cherry Blossoms were blooming. We didn't expect this - so we purchased the kids some clothes along the way so that we could take\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/mar27cap-1.jpg?fit=745%2C931&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/mar27cap-1.jpg?fit=745%2C931&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/mar27cap-1.jpg?fit=745%2C931&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/mar27cap-1.jpg?fit=745%2C931&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2673,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2016\/07\/31\/2016-july\/","url_meta":{"origin":2724,"position":1},"title":"2016 – July","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"July 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey! My posts are going to probably continue the same pattern that I've had for the past few, at least until I'm caught up. A lot of this is just a mental export for myself over the last few years. Ready for July?! Almost. 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We went to 5 & Diner again (no longer our normal location as they closed that location down during this time!). Gas was still pretty cheap (see below: 1.97\/gal) and the kids were bonding as well as ever. Arabella had\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/5nd.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/5nd.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/5nd.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/5nd.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/5nd.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4591,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2019\/12\/16\/2019-december-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":2724,"position":3},"title":"2019 – December part 1","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"December 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"December and down to the wire. At this point, we are getting to the point where if we don't get this home business shored up, we will be losing money, and then staying in the area won't make any sense. We opened the area that we were looking in to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/dec9flight.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/dec9flight.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/dec9flight.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/dec9flight.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/dec9flight.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4584,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2019\/10\/31\/2019-october\/","url_meta":{"origin":2724,"position":4},"title":"2019 – October","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"October 31, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Boo! 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Plus the backyard is\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/oct8work.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/oct8work.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/oct8work.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/oct8work.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/jshox.com\/jay\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/oct8work.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5373,"url":"https:\/\/jshox.com\/jay\/2020\/10\/31\/2020-october-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":2724,"position":5},"title":"2020 – October part 2","author":"me@jshox.com","date":"October 31, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey We recently installed a new lock for the door. 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