House #2

Well, we did it! We just bought our second house since moving here 2 1/2 years ago. We signed the papers last night and should close escrow in May. This was a much different process than the last time we bought a house. The first house we bought we were looking for "the" house. The one we would grow old in, raise a family, have a little farm out in the country. We found that but decided we jumped the gun by a few years, so we sold it and got completely out of debt. Yay! This time around we were looking for a good rental house. Our plan at this point is to live there for 2 years and then keep it as a rental property. We are hoping to do this a few times before we find our next "dream" home. Housing prices are much more comfortable for us here than in good 'ol CA, so we were able to get a good deal on a little 3 bedroom 1.5 bath, 1258 square foot house. The kitchen has been completely remodeled, and it is super cute! It has wood floors throughout and carpet in two of the bedrooms. We are moving from an 1800 square foot house that we have completely filled to the brim, so can anyone say, "GARAGE SALE!" Luckily our new place has a deep one car garage (we don't currently have one at all) and an outdoor storage unit that has a concrete floor that we can use to store our extra stuff as well. The only rooms that we will really miss is our current really large laundry room that always has piles of laundry to be sorted, stain treated, washed, folded etc. Our new washer and dryer are stacked in the kitchen behind a door. Where am I going to keep all the laundry?! The other room we won't have is our playroom that holds all of the kids toys, play kitchen, tool bench for Bennett, my computer desk and treadmill. What we are going to do about that, I am not sure yet. It is going to take some creative storing I think. It will be good for me to not be able to just send the kids downstairs to play anytime they start frazzling my nerves. It will force me to work on their behavior a little more. I won't have any other choice!

We are excited and looking forward to this new phase in our life. There is always something new going on with us! (And thankfully we save all of the good boxes from our last move!)