2020

If you follow us on Instagram or my blog Facebook page, you know that we've been busy. On top of being eleven weeks pregnant, preparing for our month long trip to help a missionary family in South Africa at the end of January, and redoing our camper, we also bought a house!!

Honestly, we weren't even looking for a new house. I was on my way to cantata practice, leaving Matt's parents' house, when I noticed a black cast iron fence around the back yard of a corner home with a for sale sign in the front yard. My sister, as a passenger, looked up the price of the home, and it was a reasonable $185k. I asked her to shoot me the link, and the next morning, after flipping through the pictures of the house, I sent the link to Matt. Over the years, I've sent him dozens of houses, and I didn't realize he'd be so ready to jump. He responded with eagerness. "What would it take to get prequalified? Call our real estate agent friend and see if he'll show it to us. Let's make an offer."

That night we were walking through and writing up an offer. By the weekend, we were winning a bidding war and committed to $191k. We went through the inspection process, keeping the whole thing a secret from Matt's parents (just a couple of blocks away) until Christmas Day, when we got to walk the whole family through!

If you CLICK HERE, you can watch a video walkthrough.

The property is a bank repo, and the inside needs a lot of work. One room (the sunroom/lounge) was smoked in, the carpets are nasty (we'll be refinishing the hardwood, Lord willing), one toilet doesn't work, the dishwasher is broken, there are a couple of active leaks around roof vents, some rotting deck boards etc. so we'll have our work cut out for us.

We'll begin by living in the camper in the backyard of this new house while I clean and paint and Matt fixes the roof leaks. We'll have moved some of our home goods into the large garage. There's no way we'll get past that stage before we leave for South Africa. Once we get back, we'll start moving into the house, working on tackling things slowly, as money permits.

We also need to sell our current house, soon. We're putting on a new roof, getting everything cleaned and painted and staged. The faster we get it ready to sell, the faster we get the new mortgage knocked out.

So, to sum up. Pregnant. Buying a house. Selling a house. Leaving for South Africa in a couple of weeks.

All of those things are positive, but when they converge, it's a little bit stressful. There's a lot to do.

Yesterday, it was five years since I gave birth to Christian, our first-born, still-born, son. This year, though we cried together at his grave as a family, I felt more thankful than in previous years. Charlotte followed her brother so closely, a gift straight from God's hand. Portia has been a strong, brave joy to mother. We watched this new tummy baby wiggle on ultrasound last week.

There's so much to be thankful this year and also a lot to get done! We're buckled in and ready to work.