Our Journey to Idaho- Part III

By Memorial Day weekend, Lance had officially accepted the job, told his business partners in MN he was leaving, and we had started to tell our family and friends about the move.  

At the beginning of June we started to get our house ready to go on the market.  All the little things we had been putting off doing in our house were finally getting done (why does it take a move to get those things done?).

We made plans to take a quick weekend trip to Idaho to look for a house. Before we left,  I spent hours on the internet (praise the Lord for the internet) looking at houses and trying to find a realtor (since we didn't know a soul in Idaho).

Our house went on the market the Friday before we left for our house hunting trip.  On Monday we had two showings and an offer on our house. By Tuesday night we had signed a purchase agreement and were ready to focus on finding a home in Idaho. 

The trip to Idaho was a complete whirlwind.  My head was spinning all weekend long.  We interviewed at Morgan's school, drove around our new community, met with Lance's employers and their families, and looked at too many houses to count.  I know we bit off more than we could chew in that weekend trip.  At the time we moved the housing market was hopping. There were so many houses for sale that our options seemed endless.  

We met our realtor on Saturday morning at 8 am to start our house hunting adventure. Around 1 pm we took a break for lunch and I was in tears. We had looked at a great deal of houses and we just hadn't found "the one".  We didn't come with expectations of finding our dream house and our list of wants were not grandiose - we didn't need granite countertops or fancy fixtures or flooring.  We just wanted a comfortable home for our family. We really wanted to buy a home in an established neighborhood but it seemed that the market was flooded with new homes and that was probably our best option.

I melted during lunch.  Our search for a home seemed hopeless. My more level headed husband had me take a step back and we sorted through the fliers on the houses we had walked through that morning while our realtor went home to check for other listings.  We had one house we really liked but the yard was so tiny that there wouldn't be much room for the kids to play. But it was the best house we had looked at all day so we decided to go back and look at the house again.  Our realtor came back with two more homes in the same neighborhood. As we were looking at one home, Landon started getting antsy (who can blame the kid - we had now been house hunting for about 8 hours) so we walked the sidewalks in the neighborhood. I came upon a house with a for sale sign but it wasn't on our list of houses to walk through.  I ran back to get Lance and our realtor and see if we could look at this house. The minute we walked in, I knew I was at home. The house just felt like a perfect fit.  We signed a purchase agreement and left Idaho excited about our new home.

I was in full move to Idaho mode when we got back. Interviewing moving companies, packing, more purging, holding a moving sale, setting up utilities, canceling things for our house in MN, and attending BBQ's and dinners to say good bye to our wonderful friends and family.  I am a planner and organizer so I had everything in order for our move - movers come Wednesday, close on MN house Friday AM, leave closing for ID, close on ID house on Monday AM, movers arrive mid morning Monday.... I thought I had everything about our move in order. Or so I thought.  I was about to be taught a HUGE lesson in patience and trust.

Part IV - the conclusion tomorrow and I know all five of you who read are sitting on pins and needles :o)