Houses, Houses, Houses!

Our life has revolved around houses for the last three weeks or so.  It's been such a whirlwind and so much work.  We have been busy preparing our house to sell it as well as searching for the right house to be our next home.  When we started, we didn't even know which realtor to choose.

And we already have big news...

We sold our house and bought our new house!

Ok, let me clarify.  We put in an offer on a new house, and that offer was accepted (subject to the sale of our house).  Today we received an offer on our house, we countered with a higher offer, and our counter offer was accepted by the buyer.

So now we start the fun of packing, paperwork, home inspections, replacing the roof on our current house (part of the deal), and actually moving.  And we're trying to cram it all in before Nolan starts second grade at a new school and Griffin starts kindergarten at a school with which we're not very familiar.  Should be interesting!

We are so grateful to God for orchestrating every detail so far, and we fully trust Him to carry out this house process to completion.  We have prayed so much leading up to this process and most certainly through the actual house hunt and house prep.

If you need evidence of God's hand on our house hunt, allow me to show you the timeline.

• Tuesday, June 25:  We finally chose a realtor and called her to make the first contact.
• Thursday, June 27:  The realtor walked through our house to start thinking about pricing, and she asked us about our wish list for a new house.
• Sunday, June 30:  We walked through seven houses on my list of possibilities.  Each and every one was a definite "no."
• Tuesday, July 2:  We looked at more houses that we didn't like.  I grew discouraged.
• Wednesday, July 3:  I found a new house listed online and asked our realtor to get us inside to see it.
• Friday, July 5:  We walked through the last house on my original list and the house that had just been listed.  We fell in love with the second house (the new listing).
• Saturday, July 6:  We met the realtor at the house we loved so we could make an offer.  The offer was accepted late that night.  Our current house was officially listed for sale.
• Monday, July 8, 11:00 am:  Our realtor showed our house for the first time.  The prospective buyer was one of her other clients.
• Monday, July 8, 2:10 pm:  Our realtor called with an offer on our house (from the woman who had walked through that morning).
• Monday, July 8, 5:00 pm:  We presented two possible counter offers (one for more money and one for slightly less money but no new roof).
• Monday, July 8, 8:10 pm:  Our realtor called to say that the buyer had accepted our counter offer!

Can you even believe that??  Less than one week from when we first started looking at houses, we had secured our new home.  Our current home sold after the first showing (which was the third day it was even on the market).  Clearly God is taking care of us and leading us.

I know there's lots of not-so-fun stuff yet to come (packing, moving, unpacking, and also holding our breath until the home inspection is over and all paperwork is signed).  But today is a day for excitement.

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for us.  Look how God answered your prayers!!

Jessica