Well here I sit FINALLY blogging after a 10 month absence. There's no big reason I haven't blogged in a long time, but a lot of little ones add up. One reason is that I certainly do have a lot of little ones running around. Also, I had some problems uploading photos for a while. Then once I missed one event, I felt like I had to blog about that before I could move onto current events. Eventually the pile up of happenings was so insurmountable, I figured I'd have to just skip them altogether and start over. So maybe I'll post a 2014 photo recap at some point. Who knows.
Ever since we moved to Hayden, we've wanted to eventually move into our "forever home". We called our current house a 5-10 year house, and always had our eye on the housing market. In May of 2014, we found The Perfect House. It's in Dalton Gardens, and has tons of main floor living, and it's situated on an acre lot. I could go on and on about its amenities, but suffice to say it's just right for us. So we put an offer on it, contingent upon selling our house, and then we scrambled to get our house market-ready. We rented a storage unit, and packed up boxes and boxes of odds and ends, and spiffed up our house to go on the market. Our summer was spent showing the house, and keeping it clean, between visiting camp, hosting a foreign exchange student, having house guests, and traveling to Connecticut.
Oh, and another big life event happened this summer: We found out we are expecting baby #4. At this point, her arrival is immanent! I'm 35 weeks along, and hopefully Josephine Eleanor Klein will make her debut on or about March 1st. So this summer during all these going ons, I was also as sick as a dog with morning sickness.
Well, our house wasn't selling, and the one in Dalton Gardens was just too lovely, and was purchased by someone else before we were able to sell our house. We kept our house on the market a bit longer, but we never found another house we liked as much, so we decided to sit tight for a couple of years.
Around September, I actually met the lady who bought our Dream House. Her daughter goes to the same school where Grace is going to preschool, and we met at school registration. As it turns out, they don't like the house that much. They bought it because they had a particular family situation where they needed a main floor guest bedroom, and since that house fit the bill, they bought it. Well, the family situation ended up changing, and now they're in this huge house with just one kiddo, and it's just too big for them. I found out that they planned on selling it after two years (to avoid being taxed on profit, I think.) So we figured we'd wait around for a couple of years, and who knows, maybe we'd still have a chance to buy our dream house.
But sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways, and he certainly did so this weekend. My friend, Kim Borsheim, who was our real estate agent when we bought our rental house, called me up to see if we were still interested in selling our house, and if we'd want to show it. She had a buyer who she thought would love our house. Our house was nowhere near show ready, in fact, we'd just emptied out our storage unit the week before, and had boxes everywhere! But we cleaned up a bit, and figured, "what the heck! Might as well!" Well, as it turned out, they loved the house and made an offer! We signed the papers last night and are under contract. We'll close mid-March, and they're letting us rent it through May 15, which is MUCH better than having to pack up and move while simultaneously having a baby!
So now we need to talk to the family who lives in our Dream House to see if they'd be willing to sell us their house before the two year mark, otherwise we'll find somewhere to rent for a while until either they're ready to sell our Dream House, or we find a better Dream House (unlikely).
It's funny because we've thought and prayed about this house thing for a long time now, and we've pursued a few different avenues that haven't worked out. We figured God might be leading us elsewhere, but it's looking like God had a plan that was just a little different than our plan!
It looks like 2015 will be a year of changes. A new sweet baby will be arriving in a few weeks, and our housing situation will change, but is still yet to be determined! So pray for smooth transitions and good decisions on our part!
