On Monday morning I did one of my least favorite things and took all three kids with me to the grocery store. I had just enough time to put away our purchases before the Richardson's arrived to play. They stayed for lunch and not too long after they left, Matthew came home and we had our adventure checking out the Pajarito Land Grant area.
I was able to work on chores and projects most of Tuesday. The kids went over to play at the Jolley's in the afternoon, and Matthew came home early again so we could verify the route to the piece of land we liked. The drive out there and the return trip both only took 25 minutes and the road was remarkably flat and well maintained for not being legally recognized. We tried to pace out the acres as best as we could and felt really good about the prospect, so we came home and sent an email to the realtor asking when we could meet. That evening Matthew hosted his book club.
The kids were invited to play at the Jensen's on Wednesday morning, so I was able to get a few more things crossed off my to do list. I picked them up a bit before noon and drove up to Grandma Becky's house (Jeb and Sterling's mom). Susan had invited Hyrum and Mercy over to play, but at the last minute plans changed and all the Brown cousins were up at their Grandma's. Our kids were welcome, so I dropped the two of them off and took Abraham to his 7 year well child check up. Afterwards we went to Walmart so he could pick out a present for his brother. Abraham then got to watch his choice of show for the rest of the afternoon while his siblings continued their play date back at Susan's house. Matthew picked them up on his way home from work.
The Jolley boys came over to play on Thursday morning and entertained my kids while I did my best to finish Matthew's Christmas present before he got home and his winter break began. I'd been running full steam all week trying to get everything finished and ready but once Dad got home I decided that what was done was all that was going to get done and we both truly went into vacation mode. We spent that evening delivering bottles of sparkling juice to the families we home and visit teach. The kids said it was one of their favorite things they did all week.
Friday was almost entirely spent playing Minecraft. The kids did go over to the Jolley's for a bit in the middle of the day while Matthew and I went to meet with the realtor regarding the Pajarito land. Turns out the whole area was part of a giant land scam back in the early 1930's. A company split it all up into parcels and tried selling them off as oil investments. They even set up a fake oil rig along the train route to try and convince folks the land was valuable. Well, as the scammers very well knew, the land is completely worthless as far as oil goes and most of it hasn't been sold again since. Albuquerque is slowly creeping up on it though and the parts closest to the city are definitely seeing an increase in value. The plot we like is right along a road, but that road isn't considered legal so technically the acres are landlocked, which is why they're so cheap. The gamble we're taking is that eventually the road will become legal, making the land along it much more valuable. This is likely a 25 to 30, possibly a 50 year investment, so if anything comes of it, it'll probably be our kids or grandkids who benefit. We like the idea of owning some land though, and it's interesting enough to play on in the meantime, so we made an offer of $3,000 for 15 acres and are now waiting to see what comes of it.
We were meant to meet at the church at 10:00 this morning to help deliver treats from the ward and then had plans to get together for games and dinner with the Jolley's and Esquerra's at the Jensen's house, but unfortunately we were up until 2:00 am last night with a vomiting Abraham. Though he was doing much better, we felt validated in our decision to cancel all our plans when, not long after breakfast, Mercy threw up all over me. Her illness came upon her rather abruptly and her response to the incident was an emphatic "I was NOT expecting that!" Needless to say, everyone spent the day in pajamas playing computer and watching shows. After helping me get the kids to bed, Matthew went over to Jeb's house for D&D where they finished up the last installment of their Bearclaws campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment