This past week has been a bit of a whirlwind. For a while now, we've been anxious to move into town to make our work and kids' activities less of a hassle (and save tons of gas). Right now we live about 7 miles from the edge of Flagstaff and about 9 miles from the area that Sara and I work. We had a place lined up for February in a great neighborhood and a great house layout. He was even planning on lowering the rent for us from $1600 to $1250 when he found out I worked for the church. He was also willing to do a rent to own deal if we wanted. It seemed like once again God had proven to be faithful and provided generously for us.
Last Thursday, we got a call from the homeowner and said that his current tenants would like to extend their stay in his house. Our first question was, "how long?" He didn't know. He said he'd get back to us within a couple weeks to see how long they wanted to extend their stay. We were very confused. Our knee-jerk reaction was to start looking to see what else existed in town to see if this place is really worth waiting for. There were some options available, but the ones big enough for our family in the nicer neighborhoods were way more than we could afford. We began to reevaluate everything.
The plan a couple weeks ago was to stay living where we are until next February. We did not consider sending the kids to public school this year since we'd be moving into another district half way through the year. The plan was to have Sara home school Gavin, and Aubri was going back to the montessori school she was at last year. As we were praying for guidance in making some big decisions, I was convicted that Aubri was not to go back to the montessori school. Even though the montessori teaching style seemed like a good fit for her, I could not ignore the spiritual darkness that seemed to hover over that place. So we starting figuring out what life would look like if we home schooled both Aubri and Gavin, and juggling Micah, Sara's work, my work, and kids activities. As we laid it all out, it looked absolutely exhausting! So I asked Sara if she'd consider public school now. We both agreed it was worth looking into as long as we didn't have to switch them to a different district next year if everything seems to be going well. So we started looking for houses in town, but in a totally different neighborhood than before.
On Tuesday night, Sara was searching Craigslist, and she said, "I think I found our house." There were no pictures on the ad, but it was in the right neighborhood and Sara sensed a peace about it. She checked out the next morning and called me at work and said, "This is it!" I checked it out later in the day and signed the paperwork to move in in September. The kids are now enrolled in the public school a few blocks from the house we're moving into. It all happened so fast, yet it all feels so right. I'll post some house pictures once we get in. We can start bringing stuff over and filling up the garage on the 19th. Better start packing!
