Dazed and Amazed.

***This ended up being a long post, and I promise I tried really hard to edit out most of the boring details!

I want to give a big thank you to everyone who prayed for our house hunting expedition this past weekend. What happened up there was nothing short of a miracle! No amount of HGTV and House Hunters could have prepared me for the experience.

Honestly, last week we were kind of panicking about all of this--the plane tickets were booked, hotel reservations made, rental car secured, 3 nights for Jack and Sabot at the doggy hotel, Bekah was coming to take care of Skylar, and we had a realtor that was very nice and we were really hoping was good. I kind of stumbled across her while looking at listings and she was so helpful and great about keeping in touch that she just sort of became our realtor--probably not the recommended way to find one.

The weekend had the potential to be a huge waste of money and we were nervous. All of our top houses from a few weeks before had sold. We had gotten a new round of listings that week, and as we would find out when we got there, they had all sold too. When we got off the plane in Syracuse it was 32 and snowing. I knew we were moving somewhere cold, but I guess I was in denial.

After spending the night in one of the nastiest hotels I've ever seen (it was midnight, we decided to suck it up) we drove off in our rented minivan while Micah munched on sausage biscuits and listened to the best of the 90's satellite radio (I'll admit, I got a little excited when the Spice Girls came on). We pulled up to the rental agency and sat in the office waiting for our realtor for almost an hour, she was a half an hour late. I just knew we had made a huge mistake. I felt like throwing up.

Then she walked in the door and turned out to be the most competent realtor we could have asked for--the city's #1 realtor for the last 25 years. She was a local and had been in every house in town and sold most of them several times over. The lady could multi-task like nobody I've ever seen and we hit the ground running with our wish list in tow. Our choices consisted of Victorian houses that ranged from large to gigantic, and one 70's era ranch that reeked of smoke and was filled with fake cherubs, crosses and baby pictures. Wierd. They all started blurring together around the 20 house mark.

We realized very quickly that there was a reason these houses hadn't sold. They had a lot of charm, and all of the Victorian maintenance--in desperate need of updates, renovations, structural problems, peeling paint, bad neighborhoods and on and on and on..... Of course I saw the potential and wanted to take on these gigantic projects like knocking out walls and adding bathrooms, but Micah was much more rational and nixed that. Thank goodness.

It was all going from bad to worse. We saw a nice one in a prime location but it was out of the question because it had one bathroom in the whole house. That wasn't going to work for us. What happened if Micah was camped out in there having his sacred toilet time and somebody else needed it? What if Skylar was potty training and couldn't get in there? What if it had a serious clog and we were without a toilet and our neighbors didn't want to share their toilet? That was a deal breaker.

We headed back to the office in the afternoon to re-group and I started flipping through a real estate magazine. A house was in there that had caught my eye several times, but I always skipped right over it when I saw the price. Doris hadn't even considered it for us, but she agreed to show us anyway. It was a house where she had played as a child. She had known the lady who had built it 110 years ago.

The second we pulled up, I was in love. It had an attached garage, perfect for winter and absolutely unheard of in an old house. As soon as we walked in it I knew we had found it. Each room got better than the last culminating in a master bedroom with two closets and a bathroom. No matter that it was pink tile. The house had vinyl siding and didn't have to be painted. It had a new roof. It was move-in ready. It had every single thing we wanted and so much more. By the end of our tour, Micah was in love too. But we both knew it was out of the question at the listing price and we weren't about to get ourselves in over our heads with more house than we could reasonably afford.

The search continued until 930 that night when we finally told Doris we were calling it a night (she would have kept going) and we went to get some dinner. We were exhausted....and still in love with the expensive house.

In the past year the Lord has really been working on our hearts about investing our money in things of eternal value. We've been very careful with our purchases and we are honestly trying to seek the Lord first in what we buy. I've been doing a study on Randy Alcorn's book "Money, Possessions and Eternity"...not a fun read, but very convicting. So buying a house was not something we took lightly. We weren't out to find our dream house or a show-stopper, just something livable that didn't need much work and would have good resale. We also really wanted a closet in the master bedroom, which seemed like a reasonable request, right? (I had given up hope of finding a master bathroom).

I realize now that the whole time we were looking at houses we kept thinking about room for guests and space for entertaining. That might seem silly, especially considering we will be living in a town on the way to nowhere, but hospitality really is one of our biggest ministries and we want to use our house for that. I didn't realize any of this until I thought about it later, but I think God honored that desire.

We prayed about it and slept on it and I woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare about one of the houses. (I seriously wish I had never gone in there, it was absolutely gorgeous but there was something majorly demonic in that house. All 3 of us were creeped out and had hair standing up before we even talked to each other about it. I dreamed about it last night too. Creepy.) We decided we had nothing to lose, so we made a low offer. It was already listed below what the seller had paid for it years ago and she had just dropped the price, so we weren't optimistic.

We kept looking at houses as the negotiations went on with the seller. She counter-offered, we counter-offered, she counter-offered, and when reached our predetermined limit we decided to walk away. It wasn't meant to be. We had less than 2 hours before we left town. We went back to our only other option, a distant second, and took pictures and tried to figure out how to make it work. If we finished the attic and kept our clothes in the hallway closet we could do it. We didn't love it, but it was affordable. We decided to sleep on it and maybe make an offer in a couple of days.

Then again maybe we weren't supposed to buy a house. Micah suggested Skylar and I stay in South Carolina and he move to Drum alone until he deploys. Or we could live in a hotel until we got our 2 bedroom house on post, even if it really did take 9 months.

So we were going to fly home without a house. We were really discouraged and completely exhausted.

We got in the car to leave, and Doris had of course been on her phone this entire time. We just tuned her out after awhile. She turned to us and said "Let's go over to YOUR house now and take some pictures. They accepted." WHAT???? I don't remember Micah's reaction because I was busy screaming. The seller wanted to get rid of her house and was willing to take a huge loss. It was ours! Talk about an emotional roller coaster.

And here it is......

We still can't believe it's ours. We feel like God answered our prayers ten fold. Not that we aren't terrified by the responsibility. We are.
I am so looking forward to having lots of company, hosting play-dates and dinner parties. I want everyone I know to plan a trip to Niagara Falls or Montreal and come visit us. I'll serve you breakfast on the sun porch:)

I won't post all the pictures on here, but I will give you a sneak peak of my favorite room of all. The door to the left leads to a butler's pantry with floor to ceiling cupboards and drawers. I won't be able to fill them all and I've never had that problem.

On the other end of the kitchen is a nook with a butcher block counter perfect for a baking station. I'm feeling inspired already.

If you want an excuse to see New England, this is your chance:)