Moving Right Along!

I am so excited because things FINALLY seem to be moving with our big MOVE! After extending our contract on closing from July to September, it looks like we may actually close before we had anticipated. For those of you who know about this crazy ride we've been on, nothing has gone as planned, so for something to happen BEFORE it is supposed to is actually quite amazing!

The contract states that we close on September 15th, but our banker told us this week it looks like we could close as early as the end of next week. I'm so excited! Things can finally start rolling and we can start the groundbreaking on our chicken houses. The last major hurdle we had to get over was to allow the surrounding land owners 14 days to state an environmental cause of why we shouldn't build there. Fortunately, there were 2 calls but after they realized which farm we were building on, neither of them had a problem. Praise the Lord! That would have been a major hold up in the process. Technically, you can't just shut down the building process of a new farm, but if they can find a reason that we could be endangering some species or some sort of crazy thing like that, then it could get pretty complicated.

On top of the exciting news about closing, our architect finally got our house plans back to us! This is been my baby and my favorite part of the whole thing. We don't plan on building until next fall (2012), but we decided to go ahead and have our plans drawn so we could stake out the area and clear the lot. The one thing about this new farm is that it is going to require a TON of TLC!! The owners haven't really kept the place up because they only use it to hunt and another farmer was renting it. Needless to say, my sweet (and very tidy) husband has already got a list of things a mile long that need to be cleaned up around the place. He's planning on hiring someone to clear the brush and random trees on the hilltops, so we needed to have our house plans finished so we know exactly where the house will be going.

Custom house plans are definitely a lot of work! Our poor guy was probably about ready to kill me. I had seen two houses that I loved on different sites. I loved the interior layout of one and the exterior look of the other. I took him both plans and asked him to blend the two.

* This is the exterior that I loved.

I don't have a picture of the interior layout. It is on my other computer, but basically I wanted the master downstairs and all other bedrooms upstairs. The plans I sent didn't include a playroom upstairs, but Scott was able to put one in our plans. I was very thankful for that! My idea was to be able to keep the kid(s) mess upstairs when we have company. I also knew that I wanted a mud room off of the back entrance from the carport. As it is now, Morgan comes right in the kitchen and it stays a wreck! The mud room will also include our laundry area and a separate bathroom. That was the designers idea because he said people could come in from the backyard and use the bathroom without tracking a mess throughout the house....... GENIUS! I'm so glad there are people out there that have great ideas about this sort of thing. It is so overwhelming! haha.

Anyway, here is our plan!!! I have the layout of the interior as well, but I'll try to upload that another day. I'm so excited about our new farm and eventually building our forever home. It is so much more than I ever imagined for our life and we all feel so blessed.

Please keep our family in your prayers. Things are going to be very stressful around our house for a while especially until our chicken houses are built. After that, we will be moving into an old farmhouse for about a year while we are building that has no central heat and air. I know we will be just fine, but it is going to be a huge change for us. I pray that we are able to keep it as smooth as possible for Wyatt's sake. I know children are so much more flexible than we think, but I don't want to make this too hard on him. Our goal is to keep things as simple as possible and make the transition as easy as we can for him. I've heard that moving/building is the hardest thing we will ever do and I sure don't want it to affect our relationship with each other and the Lord. I know He guides our paths and directs our steps. I pray that we have the wisdom to let Him do just that!