Busy times

So, Chris got a job, again! It is somewhat funny because he was supposed to start working at Under Armour on Monday... and we snubbed them! haha! Chris doesn't feel very happy about the fact that after we had accepted the offer we told them that Chris wouldn't be able to work there. It all happened so fast last week!

As I had said in my previous post we were going to go look at a house in Finksburg, which would ultimately have been a shorter commute for Chris when he was working in Baltimore at Under Armour. We had seen some pictures online and thought it was a decent looking house with acreage, which we loved the idea of! The listing is here. So, Chris Cull with Coldwell Banker, who has worked with all of the Davenports, took us out to look at the house on Tuesday. We really liked it. And we felt really good about the house. It had been recently redone, new kitchen appliances, new counter tops, new carpeting in the whole house, repainted. Anyway, they made the house look nice. Realtor Chris told us that it has already had a lot of showings on the property and that it had been listed in January and almost was sold but something happened with the listing or something so it had to be taken off the market and then re-listed. Anyway, it was very popular. The next day (Thursday) Realtor Chris called us and told us that the house had an offer and Chris and I had already been talking about how we liked the house and had started praying about it already. We knew we had to move fast with all those people who were looking at it! So we go out and see it again with Chris's family and look at all of the things that need work on it and trying to decide if it was an investment or something else. In the end Chris and I decided that we still liked it a lot and really wanted it so we put an offer in on the house. Then we waited.

While we were waiting, Chris got a phone call from this other company that he had started applying for before we had even heard about the Under Armour position. The boss guy asked Chris to come in and be shown around the next day so Chris said yes! This was on Thursday at the time so Chris was going to go in on Friday. We didn't know if we our offer had been accepted and Chris didn't start with Under Armour until Monday so we decided he should go. But we had a thought, he should take his offer to the meeting and say "make me an offer today or else I start another job on Monday". It sounds pushy of Chris to do that but we wanted this job because it is so much closer to home so a much shorter commute. 15-20 minutes compared to over an hour.

So Chris went in to see the company and as he was there, Realtor Chris called to say no changes, we haven't heard anything about an offer being accepted yet. So Chris looks at the company, decides he would like to work there and shows the boss guy the offer because we have set our finances and needed a certain amount to be able to buy this house with and have a baby in August and still have some money left over to save. The boss guy said at first that he couldn't match it but he came back later after talking to their parent company and said that they couldn't make Chris an offer of $62K a year like Under Armour was, but he could offer $55K and then 3 months later after a performance review it could be bumped up to $60K. That sounded like a pretty good deal. Anyway, Chris finished up there and on the car ride home Realtor Chris called him and said that our offer was accepted!

So now we had some important questions. With a decreased income would we still be able to qualify for our mortgage? Would we be able to pay our mortgage? Would the bigger commute be better for us in the long run? I can honestly tell you I have never prayed so much in a 4 hour time period. We called around talked to people to make sure we were seeing all sides of this decision. In then end though, we said some prayers and then had 10 minutes of quiet pondering. After it was up, we both said on the count of three the job that we felt was the right one. We both said the one in Westminster! We went back and forth, back and forth a few times, trying to figure out what to do and when we finally did figure it out, we felt so much better. Sort of... Now we had to get a signed offer in our hands so that it couldn't be retracted later. Once we had that in our hands Chris had to call the recruiter who had been working with him to get the job at Under Armour the whole time. This was the worst part of the whole day... The recruiter was not happy at all and for good reason, it means he wasn't getting a big pay check! Thankfully, the one that mattered, the guy who was going to be Chris's boss responded in an email saying he was disappointed but he understood that family came first. It was so nice of him and it made us feel soooo much better!

So now instead of Monday Chris starting a job, he starts next Monday, at decreased pay but sooo much closer so that he will still be able to see our kids grow up during the week, not just on the weekends. We know we did what was right in the long run, even if we did snub a very large company... But we are so happy that Chris has a job starting in a week and we get to sign for our house in 4 weeks! I am so glad that we are able to have the Lord on our side, providing for us and helping us in so many ways. All it takes is some intense praying and faith.