Moving

Two years ago we had a similar moving van parked in front of our house. After buying a home in Illinois, Trever was offered a hard-to-pass-up job opportunity in the Bay Area, and we took it. After finishing several renovations on our recently purchased home, we put our house on the market and moved a few months later. We moved back to California with great excitement (mostly Trever) and hesitation (mostly me). I had a hard time leaving our church community and neighborhood, and felt discouraged about moving back to a place that is so expensive.

Trever came out to California a few weeks before we did, in order to start his job. After a few weeks of searching, he found a great place for us to rent. Although the house was fabulous and the neighborhood was lovely, I had a hard time embracing our new home. We were surrounded by beauty and new opportunities, but I was focused on registering our cars, getting Jane registered in school, making friends, finding doctors, locating the grocery store, library, etc... It was all pretty overwhelming to me.

As the years have unfolded, I have realized how blessed we are to live in this area. We are surrounded by nature and have enjoyed many adventures in the hills surrounding our home. We can walk to school, have made some good friends and have started to feel more at home in our new area. We have especially enjoyed the mild (almost balmy winter) and many adventures and gatherings with our California family.

Flash forward to this summer and we moved yet again. We weren't planning to buy a home this year, but as we started exploring our options, we found a neighborhood and home that seemed to be a good fit. In April we traveled to Michigan for my sisters wedding and our current house came on the market. We immediately jumped at the opportunity. We were familiar with the area and knew the floor plan quite well. When we found out they were having an open house, we asked our friends if they could do a walk through, and give us more details about the house. After getting the thumbs up from them, we decided to move forward with an offer and low and behold, we got the house.

When we received the good news about the house, I think we were mostly nervous and a little bit excited. It was crazy to think that we purchased a home sight unseen and that we were taking the plunge into home ownership. A few days after returning to the Bay Area, we were able to do a walk through on the house and I think we both felt more peace and excitement about our purchase. 

So, we packed up our boxes and moved into our new place in June. It was exhausting and stressful, but we did it. We were so blessed to have so many friends offer to help with our kids as we packed our boxes. Our families also helped prep a few things before our move and helped us get settled.

We now spend a lot of time at Home Depot and long list of projects to tackle. Mostly, we are grateful to have a place of our own and are excited to make our house a home. We are especially grateful to my mom for coming out of retirement to help us with the transaction (and much more). And lastly, we are excited to be living in a place that we can stay for more than two years. Stay tuned for some before and afters in the months to come.