I've been pretty quiet over here in blog land. Our lives haven't been quiet, though! Jared has been busy with basketball, Corban is loving Academic Challenge, and Sydney is keeping up her riding lessons - and counting the days in between. She would live at the barn if I'd let her. And, of course, I'm working hard at school finishing up my last semester.
And Mike. Well, we're barely 2 months into the year and I believe he's been to North Carolina 6 times now. But the biggest news...
We bought a house!
I really don't have any great pictures to share since I haven't actually been there myself. I know. It's crazy. Let me back up a bit...
I've already shared that we've been house hunting since late last year. It's had its ups and downs and there were times Mike and I were not on the same page. What we wanted in the end was the same; how we got there looked a little different. Obviously, being a builder, it made sense to save money and buy something that needed some fixing up. But for me, thant meant him being gone longer than I thought was necessary. I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
So on one of our visits we found a neighborhood we liked that was getting ready to start a new phase. We'd be able to start building after the new year and be in some time in the summer. Perfect timing! There were a few down sides to this, one of them being that Mike is actually a builder and this rubbed him the wrong way to have someone else build our home. But that is something he absolutely didn't have time for. So, this seemed like a good plan. We couldn't do anything until the new phase was approved, but we were told that would happen soon, so we kept house hunting while at the same time moving forward as much as we could with the builder.
Mike had a short, two day trip down at the beginning of this month, February 1st and 2nd. This trip was all about visiting schools and sitting down with the builder to move forward. But we got some not great news: Because of weather and an error, the phase was running further behind than planned. We looked at some other options, including building on open, premium (read: super expensive) lots in the first phase of the development. Then the school news started falling apart. First, our number one choice was capped for two of our kids' grades. Then the next school, well, the short version is Mike wore jeans to the meeting and that was frowned upon. By the end of the meeting they were all smiles and welcoming, but we were worried if this would be a good fit for us. It would be a safe, friendly place for the kids, but the values may be off just enough to be confusing, so we put that as our, "back-up" school. Then we found out that the local school we were looking at has a year round middle school but a traditional calendar for the high school. So Sydney and Jared will have to start school in July. And part two of that issue is we have to have a permanent address for them to attend. They wouldn't even accept a builder's contract. So we felt like everything was falling apart.
Mike planned to come home that weekend and we would just start working on some new angles. Well, on his way to the airport a new listing popped up on his phone right in the area we were looking. It only had an outside picture, so Mike drove by it quickly and sent me the listing. I liked what I saw, but it wasn't much.
He flew home and we emailed our realtor. She couldn't go look at it until Monday, so we waited through the weekend. In the meantime Mike was able to find the builder online (it was a new construction home) and look up the plans. It was very similar to the house we were planning on building, and had pretty much all of our biggest wishes. We just needed to know what it looked like on the inside. So on Monday our realtor visited the house and took us through using Skype. We knew immediately we liked it so we put an offer in (houses often go overnight in this area). Someone else was also preparing an offer, but they accepted ours, so Mike started driving that evening and was back in NC Tuesday to sign papers. He had to go back last week to do a walk through and he closed yesterday.
Is your head spinning? Because mine is! Like I said, I really don't have great inside pictures. Here is one of the front that Mike got last week:
And Mike. Well, we're barely 2 months into the year and I believe he's been to North Carolina 6 times now. But the biggest news...
We bought a house!
I really don't have any great pictures to share since I haven't actually been there myself. I know. It's crazy. Let me back up a bit...
I've already shared that we've been house hunting since late last year. It's had its ups and downs and there were times Mike and I were not on the same page. What we wanted in the end was the same; how we got there looked a little different. Obviously, being a builder, it made sense to save money and buy something that needed some fixing up. But for me, thant meant him being gone longer than I thought was necessary. I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
So on one of our visits we found a neighborhood we liked that was getting ready to start a new phase. We'd be able to start building after the new year and be in some time in the summer. Perfect timing! There were a few down sides to this, one of them being that Mike is actually a builder and this rubbed him the wrong way to have someone else build our home. But that is something he absolutely didn't have time for. So, this seemed like a good plan. We couldn't do anything until the new phase was approved, but we were told that would happen soon, so we kept house hunting while at the same time moving forward as much as we could with the builder.
Mike had a short, two day trip down at the beginning of this month, February 1st and 2nd. This trip was all about visiting schools and sitting down with the builder to move forward. But we got some not great news: Because of weather and an error, the phase was running further behind than planned. We looked at some other options, including building on open, premium (read: super expensive) lots in the first phase of the development. Then the school news started falling apart. First, our number one choice was capped for two of our kids' grades. Then the next school, well, the short version is Mike wore jeans to the meeting and that was frowned upon. By the end of the meeting they were all smiles and welcoming, but we were worried if this would be a good fit for us. It would be a safe, friendly place for the kids, but the values may be off just enough to be confusing, so we put that as our, "back-up" school. Then we found out that the local school we were looking at has a year round middle school but a traditional calendar for the high school. So Sydney and Jared will have to start school in July. And part two of that issue is we have to have a permanent address for them to attend. They wouldn't even accept a builder's contract. So we felt like everything was falling apart.
Mike planned to come home that weekend and we would just start working on some new angles. Well, on his way to the airport a new listing popped up on his phone right in the area we were looking. It only had an outside picture, so Mike drove by it quickly and sent me the listing. I liked what I saw, but it wasn't much.
He flew home and we emailed our realtor. She couldn't go look at it until Monday, so we waited through the weekend. In the meantime Mike was able to find the builder online (it was a new construction home) and look up the plans. It was very similar to the house we were planning on building, and had pretty much all of our biggest wishes. We just needed to know what it looked like on the inside. So on Monday our realtor visited the house and took us through using Skype. We knew immediately we liked it so we put an offer in (houses often go overnight in this area). Someone else was also preparing an offer, but they accepted ours, so Mike started driving that evening and was back in NC Tuesday to sign papers. He had to go back last week to do a walk through and he closed yesterday.
Is your head spinning? Because mine is! Like I said, I really don't have great inside pictures. Here is one of the front that Mike got last week:
I shared a picture with the, "SOLD" sign in the front yard on social media and a lot of people thought we sold our Ohio home; they do look somewhat similar! In fact, we keep commenting, "Oh this looks like our house! Oh, this reminds me of our first house!" It's almost like someone mashed the two homes we built into one and made this one. It already feels like home.
Do you want to know my favorite part? It's this:
Oh my word! There are 3 trail heads in our neighborhood! They lead to a nearby farm that the town took over and is turning into park space and also around a nearby lake. I can run and ride my bike all I want! It feels like a smile from God. The town also has festivals and sets off 4th of July fireworks from that farm, so we'll have all the entertainment and activities we could ask for nearly at our doorstep. Amazing!
I know I'll be sharing more here soon. Mike is down there now setting a few things up and getting his office in the house ready. I'll finally get to go over my spring break and we'll bring the kids down over their spring break. It looks like June is our big month to get moved, but we have some things in Ohio we planned to do as well, so it will be a lot of back and forth for a while still.
And, if you follow me on Instagram @CherylSommers I'm planning to actually do more stories about this move now that things are picking up.
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