Finding our new home... and leaving our old

Move in day 2007. Lordy this feels like a lifetime ago! 

In December, my husband and I had one of those long talks - a big life change talk. A little back story. 

I bought our house in 2007. I was single and had two roommates. Writing that down payment check was the SCARIEST thing I'd ever done. But it was kind of the most amazing thing. I was 24, and I owned a home, and it was awesome. When Dan and I got engaged, it made sense for us to stay here. I was teaching west of our city, and Dan was working north. We could both easily get to work, even if we had commutes (30 minutes for me, 45 for Dan). I freaking love this house, if we're being honest. But that's a story for another blog. 

But then we had Henry, and we decided that I would stay home. Living in our house made less sense when Dan had a 45 minute commute each way on a GOOD day. And when we had Harrison, it became apparent just how much time we were losing with daddy each day. 

So we had the talk. Dan would start looking for jobs in our area. We would start looking for houses in Michigan. We'd see what happened. 

And in April, Dan started an INCREDIBLE new job in Elkhart. He loves it - so much. And it cut about 15 minutes off of his commute, which doesn't sound like much, but those extra 30 minutes a day are priceless. And when we realized we could have more time with him in a larger space, moving just made sense. 

So, we casually started looking at houses. Our realtor, who is amazing, by the way, helped us zero in pretty quickly on the areas we were looking, and after seeing several homes, we were able to make our list of Must haves and Nice to haves. 

And then we saw a ton of houses we didn't love. A lot. Not in a discouraging way, but we knew what we wanted. At least a semi-open floor plan, natural light, enough space for our boys to run around. And wowza, there just isn't a lot of that in our market right now! 

Because we weren't in a rush to move, we knew it would be okay to take our time. If it happened now or next summer or sometime in between, that would be okay too. And because of that, it took the pressure off. 

When we got an email from our realtor with the listing of our soon-to-be house, we kind of half looked at it. They were having an open house (on a Wednesday!), so we decided we'd go check it out. Holy WOW it was hopping - tons of people in and out while we were there. We LOVED the house on first sight - a gorgeous kitchen and family room, floor to ceiling windows, a FAB office, great bedrooms, and a finished basement with lots of egress windows. So, so pretty. But we figured, well, we love it, and a lot of other people will too, and we weren't in a position to get into a bidding war. So, we decided to wait and see. 

Three days later, no offers had been made, so we went back for a private showing and decided that YES, we would make an offer. 

And the rest, as they say, is history! A few days later, we were under contract, and we started making plans to leave our current home. 

And essentially that's when the floodgates opened. I bought this house as a single lady in 2007. I had two years of teaching under my belt, two fabulous and fun roommates, and too much fun here in my 20s. My college friends would come for sleepovers before Notre Dame games, and there was SO much damn laughter in this house while my roommates and I shared stories from our daily lives. 

I met my best friend in this house (miss you bunches, S)! This is the house I came home to after my first super amazing date with Dan. We got engaged in this family room. We brought our two babies home to this house. And now we're leaving it all. A wise friend told me that home is where your family is, not where the house is, but I know when the time comes to leave it, I'm going to be sad. 

Our house goes on the market tomorrow. The past two weeks have been SUCH a labor of love to get it ready to list. We've decluttered, fixed up, cleaned up, pared down, and worked our tails off. Shout out to all of the people who have helped us, especially my parents (you're the real MVPs - my poor mother has spent her entire retirement so far working on our home!). 

If you're able, send us some good vibes tomorrow, friends! We would love them!