We decided to pop on in and close on the house this morning, because, I mean, why not? We like to move at lightening speed, so this seemed the logical thing to do.
We did manage to hop on over after the closing (and while our sweet neighbor was still watching the boys) to take a few pictures of the house since there weren't but a couple we could send people from online...but before you check out the pictures, let me preface them by saying that, yes, the house is big. It is (at least in my opinion) huge. It is more than we could have possibly ever wanted or hoped for and I can't even really explain how I feel about it now being ours. Jeff and I started off with pretty darn close to nothing and relied mainly on the kindness of our family and friends to help us get by. This will be our 6th move in 5 years...we've been all over the place and we've never had much, but we have had ENOUGH. When we moved here, we got a HUGE "lifestyle" upgrade and it was overwhelming then and we felt like we were little kids living in our parent's house. That's not even what it feels like now. It's even weirder. There is nothing we have done to deserve this, but I believe that we have strived to be faithful with the little that the Lord had entrusted us with, and today we got a HUGE reward in the form of a really fabulous house.
We don't deserve such a gift as this, but we seek to serve a God who gives
abundantly...not always with material things FO' SHO', but He gives abundantly in His grace and mercy and love and forgiveness. He has provided us with everything we need in giving us His Son, Jesus, and anything beyond that is just icing on the cake! I can't believe I can say that, but it's the truth! If this new, wonderful house is blown away tomorrow (not that I'm hoping for a tornado to touch down and take care of that bad boy... figuratively speaking!), then I
know in whom I have trusted and I know that He is able to provide for my family better than Jeff or I can, and I
know that we will be OK...because ultimately, it's a house.
It is cool that it's our house now though! So, yes, here's to being a good steward of what we have now been entrusted with:
View from the street
View from the cul-de-sac (cool that its in a quiet place!). Upper garage on left, lower "boat door" (we don't own a boat, nor do we plan to..but we do have some outdoor play toys!) on right driveway
Back of house--duh
Backyard from left back corner of house ( there is a chain linked dog fence in the back which will probably be coming down soon)
Kind of the view when you come in the front door (pic taken is actually from in the dining room)
Pic of dining room facing the front door
Entering the master bedroom (off the front hallway)
Master bathroom from toilet (I guess Jeff was standing on the toilet to take this one!)
Kitchen is on back of house...me awkwardly petting the faucet, because that seemed like the most appropriate pose at the time...
Keeping room on other side of kitchen (like from where Jeff took the previous picture) Playroom is off to side in this picture
Head on into the sunroom (we are using it as playroom) from the keeping room
Half bath off kitchen area
Laundry room/mudroom across from bath
Living room, also on back of house
And then upstairs, the guest bedroom (with attached guest bath which I didn't include a picture of because I had to draw the line somewhere)
Jacob's HUGE bedroom from the hall door
Jacob's bedroom view from the closets
Couldn't get a good pic of the jack and jill bath connecting Jacob and Thomas' rooms
Thomas' room facing the bathroom door (hall door is on the left)
And now, down to the basement, we have the first room with the bath connected...inlaw suite time!
And the monstrous expanse of space at the other end of things!
Area next to the boat door in basement
View down unfinished, storage area of basement
So that's mostly it. We're pretty darn excited to get some new carpet up in there (I can smell a dog a mile away, which basically means we don't want to risk my allergies being a mess), get our fridgermerator (I say it like that, and now so does Jacob...instilling good habits is what we do around here) delivered, maybe paint something (or maybe not right now, since obviously there are no offensive colors), and then move some stuff in!
And because when I look back at this post over the years, I don't want to leave out the obvious thing that has been on my heart today in all the excitement and reminiscing about where the Lord has brought us...Dad. Sorry to be such a downer, but I don't want to forget that I thought of him LOTS today. About how thrilled he would have been for us, about how he probably would have wanted to move in once he saw the place, and of course, how he would have been painting this whole place for us! Hahaha!! True though, true. I hate he's not here to see this, but am glad that he's living in a MUCH more posh place than we are right now!
Happy Weekend to All!!
