The House that eBay Built

Years ago when I was in college, I remember driving home from school in my Ford Probe listening to Alan Jackson and looking at the area by the Jordan river near the point of the mountain. It was so green and just very pretty. I loved passing that little spot. I had no idea that in years to come, I would call it home.

We called our house "the house that eBay built" because eBay was a big part of lives when we built it. In 2001, Jared was working for Siebel in Sandy. He liked his job, but his dream was to do something a little more creative and entrepreneurial. He was always looking for something.

We'd wanted a camcorder for awhile, and decided to gather up all of our junk that didn't sell at the garage sale, and put it up on eBay. We waded through those few initial listings not really knowing what we were doing. Amazingly, we made $500 on our "junk"; enough to buy our new camcorder. We were astounded that people actually wanted that stuff!

Jared quickly found some wholesalers and started pricing the products out on eBay. He stumbled upon glowsticks. I wasn't too happy about him spending the $300 to get that first case. But to my surprise, they sold really well on ebay. Jared had a knack for creating great auctions. And soon we were both counting out, packaging and shipping thousands of glowsticks per week. I think when Elise learned to count, she said 2,4, 6, 8! She heard us counting aloud often.

Soon, I figured out that I could sell Pottery Barn stuff on eBay and make quite a profit. I established my own account, and eventually became a powerseller for quite some time. I would buy a duvet from Down East, and make a good $100 just like that. Jared encouraged me to buy multiples of items. So I'd buy literally ten of the same thing, and only have to create one auction.

Pretty soon, our eBay venture had paid off. We put some money down on this little house that was halfway between my school and his work. We had some ideas for the design. Some things surprised us. But we loved our house! We installed the tile ourselves. And at 30 weeks pregnant, that is quite a feat.

Soon after we moved in, Jared lost his job. We were pretty worried at first, but felt it was a blessing because it was more of a security blanket than anything. He was doing well with his glowsticks, and had even established his own corporation and website, http://www.eglow.biz/, which soon became http://www.eglow.com/. That venture supported two families for several years, and was a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. We were so grateful that we were able to buy our home before he became self-employed. Eglow.com led to SuperIncentives.com, which has led to his new job doing sales for a company that does search engine optimization. A couple of years ago I started selling real estate instead of duvets. We have had some ups and downs, but it has been an experience and we've gained a lot of knowledge and wisdom along the way.

I think it is so fun to look at some of the pictures of our home before the homes were built around us. Our street was almost like a cul-de-sac since the development wasn't finished yet. We could look out to the west and see for miles. My laundry room window had a great view of the mountains to the southwest. You can kinda see that from the picture of Elise walking in the snow in our backyard. The park behind us was pure weeds. There were fewer children in the neighborhood, but the ones who were there were close. It wasn't uncommon for our basement to have ten kids playing down there all at once swinging on the swings that were suspended from the beams in the ceiling.

A year or so after we moved in, they put in a big basketball facility. We couldn't believe our good fortune! Jared enjoyed playing in leagues there for years. I loved that he could put the kids to bed before he headed out.

We've enjoyed many gorgeous sunrises, full rainbows, lots of friends (although way too many have come and gone), and the kids' theatrical events. Two of our babies were born there. I always felt comfortable and safe in our home. We still feel like that is our home and hope that someone else will enjoy it as much as we did.

Bring your own ice!

If you haven't got the memo yet, we've moved! We had no intention of moving. We built our house seven years ago and have really enjoyed the convenient location, all the kids, and our neighbors. I don't like the idea of shuffling the kids around and hoped that our next home would be somewhere we'd stay forever.

But I'd been trying to solve my carpooling dilemma all summer long. Mulling over the options and trying to figure out if driving my kids to the charter school everyday was really worth it. We've loved the curriculum, and the great student/teacher ratio. But all those long months of snowstorms that would sometimes cost me an hour each way really tried my patience and there are things we were missing out on by not attending the neighborhood school.

Then in the middle of the summer, after talking with a family member, and looking at our current situation and weighing the options, we started looking at some rentals in Cedar Hills. There were some nice homes, but nothing that made me want to move. I told Jared I wanted to stay for another year then pursue it next summer. The same day, he pulled up the listing for our house. It was a good price, right in the neighborhood I'd loved for years. And it was across the street from a top elementary school. It was a great floorplan, with amazing views, and almost double the finished space. Not having to drive the kids to school kinda sealed the deal. I didn't even really need to think about. Which for me, is saying a lot.

So we started packing. And the day after coming home from our camping trip to Doheny Beach, we moved. Miles and Elise have their own rooms. Simone and Monet are enjoying sharing. I love the big garage and lots of closets. The views are amazing, and we have the best iceblocking/sledding hill ever. The kids are happy and making lots of friends with some of the 85 kids on the street. It is on a cul-de-sac, which helps with my little escapee, AKA Simone.

THANK YOU!!!! to all of the help that we had in moving in. We really appreciate all of the time and lifting done by the husbands, and very thankful to the wives for sacrificing those precious Saturday mornings.

We'd love to keep in contact with all of our friends. We love the neighbors we had in the other house and don't want to lose touch. We have a great hill for sledding, or iceblocking. So you are all invited to come on over! We have a new phone number that I will post on my facebook page if anyone needs that. And of course, our cell phones are the same.

Wishing it was January

I stopped into Janie and Jack on a whim, and saw this:

I want. I want it BAD. I want it even more after she wore her too small little dress to church today. Unfortunately, spending a hundred dollars on an outfit for Simone is something I can do. Too wasteful. Dang Janie and Jack. If it was her birthday, and it was on sale, maybe I could swing it. But her birthday isn't until January.

Bah. Her name is Simone. She deserves a dress with eiffel towers on it.

Camping at Doheny Beach

We had a great time camping on the Beach in Doheny. This trip was fun despite the bad start. Jared decided to eat a raw oyster the night before we were supposed to leave. Unfortunately he got food poisoning. Camping and food poisoning are not such a good combo. So we stayed the first night at the casino Elise dubbed “Cinderella’s Barn” you may know it as Buffalo Bills in Primm. Then when putting on his shoes one morning, he totally screwed up his back. He was pretty miserable! I don’t think he’ll be eating any more raw seafood anytime soon.

We went deep sea fishing the first day there. It was Miles and Monet’s first time. My favorite part of the whole day was when Miles started reeling in his little bait fish, and yelled, “I caught one! I caught a little one all by myself!”

We loved swimming in the ocean, getting dirty, late nights by the campfire, bingo tournaments, looking for buried treasure in the sand, playing with cousins, tide pools,
Swimming at Nana and Papas.

We reserved the group site which was huge. We had tons of room and could have accomodated a few more families. Doheny is in Dana Point which is close the Harbor. That made deep sea fishing really convenient. The waves are pretty small shorebreakers. So it was good for the little kids to splash around in the tide. We were close to Laguna and the tide pools and all the fun things that are around there. The tents were about a hundred yards or less from the tide. That was a big plus.

And I drove down the coast to look at another campground possibility for another year. These reserve in January and February for the Summer and fill up within seconds of being released, so you have to book them early. The group site might even fill up earlier than that. We had a great time and hopefully next time I'll have my right hand man in full commission.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

I thouht this summer was going to be a lazy one. I didn't enroll the kids in a single class or workshop. But I should have known better. All that extra time just means more time to play!

We had so much fun this summer. A few things that occupied our time:
Picking apricots and riding horses
Deseret News 10K and Provo River Half Marathon
Lots of family gatherings at the Shaeffers and Katie's Baby shower
Seven Peaks and Water Fun
Bees Game
Waverunning and weekend in Midway
Catching up with all of our friends and relatives who were visiting Utah.

The summer went out with a bang. We went on a camping trip to Doheny Beach, then the day we got home, we moved a few miles east so I would finally be free of the carpooling grind and so that we could have some more room.