As with everything on this blog, this is a bit delayed. :) I did begin a draft last May that I will paste below and then continue on from...
Well, it's Friday... The end to a very crazy week.
On Monday we thought it would be nice to enjoy a family day at Holiday World. Big mistake. As soon as we pulled in we noticed that it was very crowded and hot. We managed our way through for a while... Hezekiah wasn't enjoying any of the rides... And then during the kids area/splash park time I was trying to get Heze to sleep. When selah came to say she had to go to the bathroom I handed Hezekiah off to Jason. Fast forward a couple minutes and when I came back out I saw Asa sitting on the ground crying. I asked him what was wrong and he couldn't speak. I took Hezekiah from Jason and he picked up Asa. Asa's teeth were chattering and he couldn't speak. I was sure he had broken his foot. Jason said it was hard to break a child's foot and maybe he just sprained it.
For the rest of the day, Asa would/could not put any weight on his foot. It swelled up, too. We had to carry him on and off every ride. That night he tried to get off the potty by himself and stepped on it and the scream was terrible. It was one of the first times I really wished it had happened to me instead of to my son.
On Tuesday we had a babysitter arrive so that Jason and I could attend Havana and Jonah's end of the school year program and then go look at houses. With Asa's foot still out of commission, we took him with us, again having to carry him everywhere.
After the school program, we drove to La Grange, Kentucky to look for houses. We saw a couple of options, but nothing that was perfect. Jason and I have been craving to find our "forever house" and our list of wants is pretty particular. I suggested maybe we look at some of the houses with a realtor, but Jason said, "It will be at least 18-24 months before we will move."
While looking at the houses, we get a text from the babysitter that Hezekiah has thrown up three times. We quickly return home.
On Wednesday we took Asa to the doctor and discovered that he broke three bones in his foot. He had been playing on the playground and fell from the 2nd story. We made an appointment to get a cast on it on Friday. So the rest of the week was spent carrying him from place to place. He would want to play with the children and so he would scoot on his bottom with his foot up in the air.
Thursday was Havana and Jonah's last day of school!
On Friday, Jason took Asa (and Havana) to get his cast. I stayed home with the others. On their way home, they stopped by Meijers. I sat on the couch looking at Zillow houses on my phone. Then I saw it! A house so perfect for our family. In our price range (which I kept thinking was a mistake, how could we afford this house?!), had the land that Jason wanted and the house I wanted. I called Jason and said, "I found our house." "Oh sure you did. We'll go look at it with all of our free time."
When he got home he said, "So, what's the house?"
I showed him and he couldn't believe it. We talked about how it must have been a typo because that shouldn't be in our price range, and why had we not seen it before?
Jason went down to the basement to take a nap before his overnight shift, about an hour later he came up. I was shocked to see him up so early so I said, "You okay?" He confessed he could not stop thinking about the house and wanted to do something. Of course, by now it was friday evening of Memorial weekend. So, we began making a list of everything we needed to do to get our house ready to sell.
As Jason left for work tonight he has plans to look at storage units and pick up packing boxes. Who knows what is in store, but we are hoping this house is. I have never, ever seen Jason get excited about something so quickly!
(Written today)....
Well, we bought the house. :) We saw it online on that Friday, drove to see it on Sunday (Jason and I sat in the driveway and prayed for God to protect the house for us). And then toured it on Tuesday, made on offer on Wednesday, and the following Friday we had a signed contract. It was a blur but it was wonderful.
We quickly painted, installed new carpet, and put in new appliances in our old house. No one even looked at it for a month. But then, God moved and our neighbors bought it. What I loved about all that is that we were able to live in our house and not keep it show ready all the time. We closed on August 2nd (to which our relator laughed about how many things could have gone wrong but didn't) and on August 7th I cleaned it with a bunch of friends. We moved our stuff in on the 9th, but the moving process was so stressful that we spent the night with the Bayless family and spent the first night in our new house on August 10th. Jason had to work that day from 2-10pm so I did dinner and bed by myself with the children. That Saturday, we had a house-anointing party and then just began the life of farmers. :)
We didn't close on our old house until September 1st so we would occasionally go back and forth (doing laundry and watching cable). It was certainly an adjustment period learning how to manage the 26 acres and figure out our house.
Everyone asks us if we are settled yet. I say settled is an allusive term. We are living here and it feels like home, but settled is still a few years away.
Upon moving in we bought a tractor and other farm equipment and are trying to figure out how to stay on top of it.
Paved half of our driveway.
Jason finished a little scrapbooking room for me (which I love).
Jason finished most of the trim work in our bathroom.
We added a sink in the boy's bathroom and a drain so that their bathtub works (for the first few months they were bathing and brushing their teeth in the guest bathroom).
Bought a small swing set and climbing dome to help entertain the kids (they miss the old one)
Jason's organizing the garage.
We sold Jason's car and he upgraded to a truck.
Jason has landscaped the front of the house... the back of the house will come next year.
On our list to do this summer is finished the basement, finish paving the driveway, paint the red room (to make it a school room), and paint and decorate the prayer room. If we can do those things I think it will be a success.
I wrote a few blog posts on my marriage blog about this process... those can be found
here and
here.
We hope and pray God doesn't call us away from the property. We feel like this is our forever house and enjoy daydreaming about our family's future.
