The Final Days

This coming up Saturday we're moving. We are so excited to move into this new place, which is bigger than what we have now and is in such a quiet and family oriented neighbourhood. There are so many things I love about this new place and can't wait to live there!

But then, there are so many things that I love about where we are now, that I'm really going to miss this place. Yes, I get uber sentimental when it comes to changes. I usually have a big meltdown with every new change in my life. When I graduated and flew off to New Zealand on my own; after I got engaged; after I got married; after we had Cheyenne; you get the idea. I'm not a fan of the process of change, but I do like it in the end. Most changes are usually for the better. So that makes me excited!

We've lived in our current home for just over four years now. It was the first house that James and I bought, a year and a half into our marriage. It's the house that Cheyenne was born in, literally. We had a home birth, so that makes it even sadder  for me to leave this place. The memories of that night and the ones to follow. She crawled for the first time here, she took her first steps here, her first haircut. She had all her firsts here. I've worked out of this home for over 3 years now. First as a hair stylist, and now with my photography. So much has happened in this home.

If these walls could speak, they wouldn't stop talking. I'm sifting through memory after memory in my mind right now. All the Pizza Nights shared with old and new friends; all the phone calls to dear friends; play dates and dinner parties; birthdays and anniversaries. So many good memories!

The whole process of house hunting this time around was amazing. I don't know about you, but we often don't think to pray about these kind of decisions. Up until only a few months ago, I'd say, did we realize the importance and relevance of including God into these huge decisions. We never used to think to pray for guidance and wisdom when purchasing a car, or a home, or what have you. We've learned a lot over the last year or so. God has really stretched us in our lives and in our knowledge of His Love. So, we prayed. We prayed that God would be present in these decisions. That he would guide us and give us peace or unsettled feelings about our choices. And he did, in so many ways.

First of all, we listed our place on a Friday. We had our first showing the following Thursday, and an offer put in on that Friday, and the subjects were removed by the following Friday. Yup. That's right. Basically, we had our place on the market for a week. (Judy is pretty much the best realtor ever! She helped us when we bought our current place and we will definitely ask her to help us again with our next place, which hopefully isn't any time soon! We'd like to stay settled in one home for a while now!)

We found a house that we loved. We fell in love instantly. It had everything we wanted/needed and more. We put an offer in as soon as the deal on our place was final. Well, a couple days later I went back to this place to check it out again, from the outside. My concern was the volume of the street noise. I wanted to get away from that entirely with our next house. Our current home is right on the corner of a very busy intersection, along a truck route. It's loud and frustrating. When I drove away that day I felt sick. Literally sick to my stomach. Something wasn't right. I told James about it later, saying that I felt like the Holy Spirit was letting me know that this wasn't the place for us. James wanted to brush it off, he loved this place. It really was immaculate! But I told him we needed to pray about this. We have the Holy Spirit in us and he communicates with us and I strongly felt that something wasn't right with this place. So we prayed. And not long after, James felt the same. And Judy felt the same too. We all had this gut feeling that something wasn't right with it. Or that it just wasn't the house for us. There was something else out there that was better suited for us. When we finally got the minutes for that place it turns out it had some dodgey stuff going on, so we got out of that as quickly as possible.

And then we found our house. Yes, it's not as immaculate. But it's in the quietest neighbourhood ever! You can actually hear birds out of your windows! That's rare at our current place! So, we had an amount set in our minds that we wanted to pay for this place. And ideally, we wanted to have two days to move (Friday and Saturday) because I have to photograph a wedding on Sunday and didn't want to be too stressed with everything. After going back and forth, offer after offer, they finally settled on a price. The exact price we were hoping for AND the two days to move! How awesome is that? The way it all came together just blows my mind. In just under a month, we listed our place, sold our place, and bought our new place. Wow. That was way faster than I was anticipating!

So now we're packing like crazy. Let me rephrase: I'M packing like crazy! haha. I love packing though and I'm trying to be super organized and it's my choice to do the packing, so James isn't in trouble! ;)

Anyway, this week we bid adieu to our home and say hello to our new home :) Goodbye Unit 65, you have been a pleasure to live in!