New house story

Get comfortable and brace yourself for a long story.

About 2 years ago, Doug and I started talking about how we would love to get a bigger house with a decent block, but I didn't reeeeally want to move as I love where we live. As time has gone by and Alex has gotten bigger, it's become apparent that we are outgrowing our little (but lovely!) house with the teeny backyard, even though we have a giant park available across the road.

I love the houses on Kalinga Dr, which is just 700m away from our current house, one street parallel from the kids school and the high school we have them enrolled at. They are big blocks (1050m, which is a quarter acre) which is just unheard of in Ellenbrook these days...  and the problem is getting one of them, as anyone who has one, doesn't want to sell it! I was always eyeing off a certain one, which is next door to Madeline's friend. Her parents would always tell us we needed to buy it so we could be neighbours. The house was actually empty for an extended period of time, as the owners had split - he'd moved out and then she had abandoned the property. We and a few other friends of ours even started referring to the house as "our house" as we kept saying if it ever came up for sale, we would buy it! I even said to Doug a while back, if that house comes up for sale before we have the money, I would be so mad, I really want it! It's exactly where I want to live. 

So, Doug and I actually started looking for a bigger place a while ago. We even made an offer on a house in Ellenbrook. It felt right, we loved the house, we loved the property - the only things I didn't really like was that the kids rooms were still small and where it was. It was all the way over in the Bridges, which is not at all where we wanted to live, but it felt good, so we made an offer. So when offer was rejected, we were actually so surprised! I was like OH. Weird. We felt like it was right, we felt confident in our offer and then, just, nothing.

So, here's me telling my SIL this story while I'm at her house catching up with her... she's like oh that's so strange, it really sounded like it was meant to be! To which I said, yeah who knows, either someone blew our offer out of the water (edited to add, months later - can confirm this is what happened, it went for $85k more than we offered!) or they didn't like the conditions we placed on our offer. I then went on to say that it didn't matter - and that there was obviously something better around the corner for us. 

Not even kidding, 30 seconds later, my phone buzzed, it was the girl next door, telling me she had just seen online that "our house" was actually for sale! What. The. Heck. What are the chances of the actual house we had wanted and waited for, not only being for sale and us being in a position to buy it. What a huge, big, fat, put in our laps, blessing. There is absolutely no denying that.

So. We went to the home open, we talked about it for ages. We prayed about it and of course me being me, kept freaking out about it. Then Doug (and his sister, bless her) were like what more of a sign do you need? Are you mad? Can you not see the wonderful, amazing opportunity the Lord has put in your lap? That's probably exactly what I needed to hear, although still not making me feel any better haha. We made an offer, then another offer, then a counter offer - and the house is currently under offer - to us! We are waiting and trying to not get too excited as there is quite a lot of restrictions on the deed and the sale may not go through. Plus there is a lot of work to do on the house even if it does go through, so either way, we wouldn't be moving for months. Just have to sit back, try to relax and see what happens. Fingers crossed!