New News

But, what is news if it's not new? :)

May 11 is a new and exciting date for us: we're moving!

Through a turn of events that we've been waiting for but not expecting to quite happen like this, we're actually moving to Milford, not Seward. (Why did I ever say I'd NEVER live in Milford??? Yes, eating my words again...)

A little back ground... For the past several months, we've been preparing financially, prayerfully and spending a lot of time researching houses for sale. Every option we thought we had, something would turn up sour. Either we didn't have peace or the house was just not what we wanted.

Recently our tax money surprised us in a good way and that never happens when you own your own business. Just a week ago, Toby called me with the news that he had just talked to our tax accountant and found out that we were actually going to put a certain amount of money in our own savings this year, not Uncle Sam's.

On the tail end of that news, this house opened up for us. It's amazing too because this house has been for sale for several months and there's no reason why it shouldn't have sold by now. Somehow we never saw it advertised either. Which is amazing considering we combed all the ads and websites of houses for sale and never saw this one.

Other interesting details follow. When we bought our first fixer upper 3 1/2 years ago, our plan was to fix it up over a 2-3 year period, sell it and then buy another fixer upper. Repeat until we were debt free. When the 2-3 year period came to a close, we re-evaluated some ideas we had and decided to step out of that plan for awhile. It was a good time to rethink motives, options, family plans, etc. and pursue other things.

But, then when we started looking at our future and the goals and purposes we wanted for our family, it was hard to figure out how to balance church life and even work life with where our current home was situated. It is next to impossible to be involved with our church and with many of our friends and yet live so far away from them all. The challenge to maintain relationships was making it very difficult to actually participate in a lot of what we normally would've been involved in.

So, we started thinking about moving. We had a mental list of the things the next house would have to have and the price range we would stay in. I mentioned to Toby one time that we needed to remember that when we bought our first fixer-upper, we had no children. This time around, we'll have 3. The condition of the house needed to be a bit more livable than the last house was at first. He agreed entirely with me but couldn't promise that it would go that way, which I understood.

We could only hope and pray.

When we stepped foot into this house, we found everything to be very much in move in condition. Except for washing walls and eliminating a mild cigarette smoke smell, this house is ready for a young family too busy to make improvements right at first. The entire upstairs has been updated and remodeled so our decision was based on if the basement had potential for improvement, which would ultimately increase the value of the house once Toby fixed it up.

So, the upstairs was ideal, even more so than we had ever hoped but what about the basement?

As we headed downstairs, we found the lower portion of the home to be more ideal than we could've even dreamed of. 8' foot ceilings, nice new windows and a space for a second bath, the potential waiting down there is endless.

I looked at Toby and he had that "I'll take it" look on his face.

We then made an offer. We shot kinda low (at our realtor's advice) and expected a counter offer. The sellers surprised us by accepting exactly what we offered and under our terms.

It seems like it's been go, go, go right from the start. At this point, we're waiting on inspections and other legal stuff to go through but with the way everything looks, there should be no problems.

If I'm not blogging real regular, you'll understand where my focus is: get packed, moved and settled before the baby comes! I'll post updates as they evolve so stay tuned.