Praise be to our God, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Ephesians 1:3

With another new addition to our family soon
approaching, we will need a little more elbow room. We have been praying that God will help us in our search for something a little bigger. We have been in the home search mode for several months now,(since Nov.)and have been looking to rent as opposed to buying.Only because we really did not want to incur such a huge debt as a home loan would have us do. It has been such a relief not to be in debt this last year and a half. No loans, no credit cards etc.. and not worrying whether or not we "had" enough. We were able to pay "Cash on the barrel!" LOL. We almost got our hands on a place to rent that had some small acreage to go with it, but, someone beat us to the punch. We had totally worn ourselves out in search of another home. Almost every day we had been out looking at new places.We would usually get home in time for Craig to get ready for work or if it was his off day, after dark. At the same time we had been finishing all of the other projects in our current place.

We had really been praying for direction in this area. Do we keep looking for a rental,stay here or should we go ahead with a home loan?? The Lord was leading us more and more towards purchasing as opposed to renting. We initially did not want to listen and kept up with the rental search. The doors kept closing on us and the door for purchasing was there. Craig and I knew that this was where we should go...dragging our feet:) We have to remember that, we may have "plans" for our life on how it should be, what we want,how we want it, but, God's plan may be completely different. Our plan to live debt free, until we could save enough to purchase the home that we wanted and pay for it in cash, was not God's plan for us. He allowed us to live debt free for a season, and we are thankful for that.

We thought we were tired and worn out before!! Now we have been "officially" looking at homes to buy since the first of January. There have been several homes that have caught our attention, but, there was always "something" that we didn't like. You name it; location,storage,square footage,acreage,outbuildings,upgrades and the audacity that some of these sellers had, to price their homes as if they were move in ready ....ughhh!

Well, there was this home that we kept coming back to, over and over again, we call it "The Snake House" (more on that later). But, we thought that we shouldn't rush into it and we should keep looking. It was one of the first homes we looked at. We just told ourselves that if God wants this house for us then it will be there. So, we kept looking and kept on finding problems with other homes. I shouldn't say that they all had "problems", they just were not for us. I don't know about you, and I know "someone" will kill me for using this word, but, I have to "feel" it. Some of you know what I am talking about, when you just "know" or "feel" that this is it! And I must say, that, we all, every one of us in this household, "felt" this way about "The Snake House". It's funny because we even have our real estate agent calling it "The Snake House" too. Okay...I should probably explain now......

The "Snake House" went on the market last year and a lady bought
it in October. This lady is deathly afraid of snakes. She saw several
garter snakes on the property and freaked out. She had her husband
seal any cracks that he could find outside. I mean everywhere! They
killed the ones they found and she wanted out of there, could not live
there if she was going to see any snakes. So 16 days later,they put the
house back up for sale. She said that she was actually only in the house

for four days!

Can you imagine? Now,don't get me wrong, if there were poisonous snakes on my property, I wouldn't want to be there either. These are "water" snakes, garter snakes. There is a water canal/creek that runs along the northern property line. You are going to have these snakes with water. Having a few snakes and having an overpopulation of these snakes depends on how you manage the property/land. Keeping the canal area clear of low lying brush etc... would definitely help.

Anyway, we loved the house so much that we decided to put an offer on it, the sellers accepted it, had it appraised ( it appraised @ almost $20,000 more than the asking price) Woo-Hoo!,and we are closing tomorrow!!!! We are soooooo excited.The kids are so anxious to get into the house that they want to camp out in the house tomorrow night. They have already picked out their bedrooms. We spent some time today walking around on the property and watching the children run around, in their big back yard with big smiles on their faces.

We have been waiting so long to have our hobby farm and now we are almost there. We actually have several eager friends who want to help us out with a donkey, chickens and some goats. The home has everything that we need to get started and more. The home is on an acre, it has 4 bed (could be 5), 2 bath, 2840 sq.ft.,2 car gar., finished basement with plumbing for 3rd bath, outbuildings, workshop for Craig, potting shed, chicken coop,established garden area, large backyard for the kids. We are definitely excited to see where God is taking us and so very thankful for his blessings.

In the meantime, we will continue to finish up the projects in our current home and try to sell it in the spring or summer. I will post more on our moving day.Here are a few photos of the new home.

Praise God!