SOLD!

It's finally over.

We have sold our house and the check is in the bank!

PRAISE GOD!

This has definitely been a "sanctifying" experience. The crazier that things got, the more time we spent on our knees praying it over, and drawing closer to God.  And as always, our God has been faithful and blessed us beyond measure.  The sale of our house was a rocky experience, and there were times I wondered how it would all work out because the details were so uncertain.  Looking back, I can now see God's hand working through it all.

We went into escrow in April and even though the buyers had a pre-approval letter from their lender, they nearly lost their funding several times.  It kept dragging on for months as they jumped through hoops with the bank. In the mean time, the rental house that we had been scheduled to move into (and had planted a garden at) went into foreclosure and was no longer available.  Every rental with land that we called on was taken within hours of being printed in the newspaper.

We were disheartened, and completely uncertain about everything. We were a week away from having to put our stuff into storage and move in with my in-laws. Our realtor kept telling us not to sign a lease, close out our 2nd mortgage, or do ANYTHING until the buyers had a loan lock.  For some reason, we felt prompted to step out in faith and do these things anyway.  We drove 3 1/2 hours down to Phoenix to pay off our 2nd mortgage on a Friday.  The next morning, we signed the lease on a house that my husband found on a whim, and we spent the weekend moving equipment and tools to the barn and shop. Our realtor thought we were nuts!

But then, on Monday night at 5 pm, he called us and said, "the good news is that the buyers got a loan lock. The bad news is that you have to close on the house and move by tomorrow or they'll lose their interest rate and the deal will fall through."

So we moved in during a hammering rain storm with lightning all around us, and in less than 24 hours.  If we had not taken care of our banking business, found a rental, and began to move all of our ranching equipment before the buyers had a loan lock, we would have never been able to close our escrow and we would have been back to square one.  If we had closed any sooner, then we would have been in a mediocre rental with no barn or shop, or horse pens, and we would not have found this absolutely perfect rental that meets ALL of our needs while we search for land and a new home. It has a large shop, a barn, tack shed, out buildings, stalls for the livestock, and two paddocks for the horses.  Plus, it's tucked in the pines and close to the lake.  The house fits us all comfortably, and has a few little luxuries.  It was built in the 1940's so it has that old house feel, but it was added onto and updated in the 80's with a giant master sweet that makes our bed and dresser look completely lost.

I haven't had time to take any good pictures, but here are just a few taken with my phone.

Here's the front of the house nestled down a quiet dirt road. I've always wanted a white picket fence. :)

Looking out back toward the horse stalls... the kids love being able to ride every day without having to trailer the horses.

The pigs have their own stall and are staying nice and dry during the monsoon season.

(Sorry for the blurry iphone pic... Cade is checking out his new stall that opens up to a large paddock.

And true to form,  we moved the contents of our entire house with several trucks and the stock trailer.  We sprayed it out really good, but as you can see, it's still well seasoned. HA! Just keepin' it real for all my friends in blog land.

I'm so thankful it's all over! I've spent the last week in a sea of boxes, and the house is finally coming together.


Now we'll begin the second half of our moving adventure... finding a new place to buy!


Moving is exhausting,

Nell