As if we didn't have enough craziness going on in our lives, we also moved residences in October. Around March or April, Mike, who constantly peruses the Homes Plus real estate guide, found a home that he thought we should look at.
Of course, we immediately fell in love with it, which is a definite hazard when you decide to go around and look at houses. Anyway, we decided to put ours on the market. We were a little cautious about doing so because we had tried to sell our house about two years ago, and we didn't have any bites, which was very discouraging.
Nevertheless, we reasoned that if this was what God intended for our family, He would open the doors even in the midst of a poor housing market. We were very clear with our realtor on this point as well. We weren't in any rush to move, so we weren't going to be giving our house away just because the market was less than favorable.
Even though keeping the house clean became an Olympic feat, the hard work paid off. Fortunately, God opened the necessary doors, brought reasonable and interested buyers (one of which was a former students of mine - how weird is that?) and we moved to a little farm place that is just under five acres and is a couple of miles from town (Willmar). (And it is basically across the road from some good friends of ours - the Magnusons.) And yes, I will not allow Mike to pick up any more Homes Plus real estate guides. I do NOT want to move again.
Moving, in and of itself, was an adventure. We had lived in the Collegeview house for eight years, and that meant we had to wade through eight years of toys, junk, and other accumulated materials. A garage sale, multiple sales on eBay, and multiple trips to Goodwill helped us to whittle the pile down to the necessities.
We moved over MEA weekend, and somehow, we managed to cram all of our belongings into two enclosed trailers (from Dan Sands and Jeff and Pam Magnuson), the Maracom truck, and the Maracom van. (Fortunately, we had been able to get into the barn ten days prior to our closing so that we could move the contents of the second garage. That saved us a ton of aggravation.)
On Thursday, October 20, our family, my mom and dad, Cassandra Lankenau and Harold and Amy Korthuis moved everything out of the 2800 house. Of all the pieces of furniture to move, the piano was, by far, the worst. Mike said if that piano ever gets moved again, it will be moved by chopping it up into little pieces. :S
On Friday, October 21, we had more help to move in. The same crew from Thursday plus Rick, Rhonda, and Gavin Klein, Wade Fernelius, Hanna Savig, and Ardis Aaker helped. Pam Magnuson was a lifesaver by making us all lunch and our family, supper. It was a whirlwind of activity, but we were in. . .and I DO NOT want to do it again. (Did I mention that already??)
In the twenty-one years that we've married, it has always been our goal to be out in the country, so we are loving our new place as well as the peace and tranquility. The lady that we bought the property from had lived here since the early 70s when she and her husband bought the land. They build the property into what it is today, so we felt very blessed and honored to now own it.
It is a three bedroom rambler (soon-to-be five bedroom), and it has one outbuilding (a former horse barn). Our current project is adding two bedrooms in the basement for the kids. One of the stipulations in buying the house was that we told the kids that they would have to dig their own egress window holes, which they did (with minimal grumbling).
So far, the egress windows have been installed, and the framing for the rooms has been done. It has definitely been a group effort, and we are very thankful to Mike and his dad for giving up htheir Saturdays to make it happen. Even though the kids promised to do their share, Mike has definitely been picking up their slack with regard to the egress windows, framing, measuring, cleaning, sheet-rocking. . .well, you get the picture. We're hoping that this project will be done very soon.
As you can tell from the pictures, I will have plenty of weeding to do in the flower gardens next summer. Feel free to come over and help if you're bored. :)
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