That one time we bought a house

We thought we had made the decision to stay in Illinois for another year...but we just couldn't give up on the idea of possibly moving, so we continued to look at houses to buy anyway. We were looking in Kaysville, Riverton, Herriman, Saratoga Springs, and South Jordan, Utah. Mostly Kaysville because we seemed to have a better chance of getting a larger lot there. We had one in particular that we were keeping our eye on - I loved the style of the house, but the price seemed excessive since half of the house was unfinished. One popped up in Riverton that we really liked, but it sold pretty quickly. Another one popped up in Kaysville that we thought might be the one, but it sold before we were even able to think it through. Yet another one came up in Kaysville, and we decided we needed to jump on it if we were serious. So Ed and Keira took a little househunting trip to Utah.

Flying for free is definitely the best perk of Ed's job. This must be on the flight out because on the return flight poor Keira was really sick.

 

They looked at several houses, but the one in Kaysville was definitely the best. We put in an offer the next day and started making plans to move. The owner came back with a counter-offer. We countered again. He came back with "I'm 90% sure I'm going to accept your offer." We were trying to do this without involving any agents, but in the end we never heard from the guy again. It was super frustrating - we really liked that house.

 

Around this time one of our kids went through something really hard. Something we never would have imagined, and were not prepared to deal with. And that's about all I'll say about that. I don't mean to be mysterious, but it's not my story to tell. Ed and I were agonizing over how to help our precious girl and for the first time we were truly feeling like we needed the support that comes with living close to family. We hadn't found anything we were super excited about in the Boise area before, but Ed felt he needed to look again, and this time he found this:

It was spacious but not full of wasted space (something we didn't like in many of the Utah houses - too big), on an acre of land, in an area that was close to the freeway but out in the country, and in a school district I had been interested in. It had the kitchen and an extra garage that Ed wanted, and details I was hoping for (5 bedrooms, a nice pantry, central vac, jack-and-jill bath, an office, etc.). It was also only 10-15 minutes from my parents, and within a half-hour of Ed's entire family. The only problem was the price. But we went ahead and put in an offer anyway, without ever seeing the house. After the frustration with our last offer I wasn't really expecting much.

 

Lo and behold, they accepted our offer right away. It took a little while for it to all sink in, but once it did...the panic attacks started. It had all happened so fast...we still didn't know if we really wanted to live in the Boise area! What would this mean for Ed's commute? Living by family would be a wonderful thing...right? And would this be a good thing for our kids - one in particular?

 

Ed flew out to look at the house, and it was everything we wanted. We went forward with financing and a closing date.

 

In the end, I believe everything happened this way for a reason. If we hadn't gone through the trauma we had with our daughter, we wouldn't have looked for houses in Idaho. If we hadn't gone through it when we did, we wouldn't have seen this particular house. I have to assume we were guided.

 

Next up: we move to Idaho!