Anybody Home??

Literally. If you knocked on our door in Kalona tonight, there would not be anybody home. Yes, alot has happened in the past couple of weeks. And simultaneously, no one has been at home on this blog either. A-hem. Yeah, you had already figured that out, right?

In early May, we found a property online that kind of appealed to us. A little further west than we preferred, and the house looked a little ... crazy. But we set up an appointment to see it. Turned out that Jason went to see it himself since I was out yard saling with a friend and totally didn't get back home in time. Jason liked the place pretty much {he didn't remember much about the house, but the barns made a big impression on him}. So we put in an offer. Six hours later someone else put in an offer too, and the owners sold it to him within hours. Done deal. Okay then. God, we accept that.

Several weeks later our real estate agent contacted us and told us that the same place was coming up for sale again. Apparently the new owner simply needed to own the property for collateral for a few days {I so don't get this whole thing} and now he wanted to turn it around and sell quickly. So, we repeated our offer, and within hours, he had accepted and all of a sudden we were home owners! And I had not yet even seen the place! lol  Neat side note here: we paid less for the place than the other buyer did. AND he had to deal with bringing the sewer up to code. Fun!

So June 29th we signed about 473 papers and walked out of the bank with the keys to our very own {A-hem, bank-owned} property! Three acres, a 5-bedroom home, huge barns, sheds, and enough wild wooded areas to keep my boys totally enthralled for weeks. We were and are so, so, so excited.

The next 4 weeks was pretty much filled to the max with either A.) packing like a mad woman at the old house or B.) painting, cleaning, and re-modeling the new one. Every night I would fall into bed exhausted, thinking that I couldn't possibly be any more tired. And the next night I somehow was even more tired. Several {kind, thoughtful} friends advised us to slow it all down and just move in several months down the road. But the idea of forking out both rent and mortgage just went down pretty hard, so we kept at it. And on July 30, we moved. Yay for lots of friends and helpers, or I don't know where we would be!!

We've been in the new place for 1 week now. Today I was reflecting back over the past couple of weeks and the feelings of being so richly blessed  began to wash over me. God has been so incredibly good to us. The joy of having a place to call our own. Space to stretch and grow. The little blessings that fit our family like a glove. The freedoms to dream and plan and hope. Oh, Jesus, we love you and thank you!

~More pictures & details coming soon. I promise! =)