The backyard of the house we hope to buy. Very nice chicken coop, raised beds. . .

It’s been a week since our last update and so much has happened since then!

Last Thursday we toured a house in Coeur d’Alene and knew instantly it was “the one.” Even the kids knew, it just felt right. We put an offer on it within a couple hours – which the sellers accepted and we were instantly under contract. We had our inspection on Tuesday (it went amazing!) and have a tentative closing date of September 2.

 Let me tell you a little about the house. . . .

• Smallest, most affordable, house we have ever purchased
• 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,300 sq feet
• Small, fenced yard with chicken coop and a couple raised beds
• Good school just 1-mile away
• Easy commute to Jeremy’s teaching job at a nearby high school
• CLEANEST house I’ve ever seen – spotless, every cabinet, drawer, corner – spotless.
• In a neighborhood with young families (a first for us!)
• No room to park the Airstream (only downside) – it will go in storage

We looked at a lot of houses in the last couple months. I felt a little bit like Goldilocks – too big, too dirty, too old, too fancy, too expensive, too far out of town . . .we picked this one because it checked many boxes for us (mostly listed above). We plan to live in this house a year or so, and then rent it out – but that’s only just a plan, you know how those can go. 🙂

Two years ago we were looking at dream houses. . .  much bigger and fancier than this house – and honestly I would have never given this house a second look . . . but that was two years ago and we’ve changed a lot since then. . .

After you sell all your possessions and move into a 180 square foot trailer for 14 months of travel – your priorities shift dramatically. I am so grateful for this change in perspective. Keeping up with the Joneses and having a big, fancy house is not the least bit important to us – we want a small mortgage so we can save money and travel whenever we can – while continuing to live debt-free. This time around (our third house purchase) we purposely bought a starter home – as a smart financial choice – because there is ALWAYS a market for resale on starter homes and we can easily rent it out (for a nice profit!) as soon as we’re ready to hit the road again or move into a different house. We made the most practical, sound decision we could have when purchasing this house – in some ways it’s what we needed to do, after a year of relative risk and pushing our comfort zone. 

View from my chair on the beach, watching the kids play in the lake.

As soon we put an offer on the house we got back on the road and went north to Priest Lake, Idaho. We no longer have to be in town to watch for a house to come on the market, so now we’re parked in a National Forest campground two hours north of Coeur d’Alene – just $20/night, with no electricity or water or sewer hook-ups, a beautiful lake with a sandy beach, 80-95 degree weather, the smell of pine trees, deer walking through our campsite. . .and we are back in our happy place. Thank goodness.

Liam celebrated his 9th birthday a couple days ago up here at the lake. He had ice cream 3 times that day. . .

and he blew out a candle in 2-scoop huckleberry ice cream cone (his choice, we told him he could have ANY cake he wanted!). It was a wonderful day and I can’t believe it’s been a year since he celebrated his 8th birthday in South Dakota (while we dodged tornado warnings!). So much has happened in the last year.

We initially planned on staying at the lake just 5 days but extended our reservation another 5 days because we are enjoying ourselves so much. We head back to Coeur d’Alene on Monday August 1st – at which point we will settle in to a RV park. Jeremy starts coaching football soon and while he’s busy with 2-a-day football practices for a couple weeks, I’m flying up to Alaska with the kids! 

That’s right, the kids and I are flying up to Fairbanks, Alaska for a 14-day trip (Lord, help me) to visit my immediate family (parents, sister, brother) who live there. We haven’t been up there in a couple years, we had enough airline miles for free tickets (yay for a year of campground fees on your AK Air credit card) and we figured it would be a great opportunity to see family while while we are in a hiatus the next month. I’ll be sharing our Alaska trip on Instagram and will probably do a blog post as well – that is always an adventure.

So we are COUNTING down the days to the house closing (35 days to be exact). . . and I’m praying everything goes well until then. I’m reminding myself daily to soak up this season because it will be over before we know it and I’ll be dreaming of pulling the Airstream out of storage to get away . . .even for a day. I just know it.

Thanks for putting up with my relatively whiny post last week. I’m over it. And we’re in our happy place. 

Take that. . . . .