There's No Place Like Home

As promised, today I have a really fun and exciting announcement. This past weekend, Paul and I bought a house! But this isn't just any house. It's a house that doesn't exist yet. That's right, we are building a new house!

{doesn't he look so good standing there on our lot!?}

We are so excited for this new adventure and it was just amazing to see how the Lord led us to this decision. We'd been casually house hunting for about a month or maybe a little more, with a realtor we really like. The market here in Phoenix is picking back up, and so homes were moving pretty quickly – especially in our price range. Our realtor suggested new builds to us, and actually we hadn't really even considered it because we didn't realize something like that could be in our price range.

{here I am in our backyard. we love those mountain views!}

So she took us about 15 minutes north of where Paul works to a developing community and we fell in love :) (ok so I had more of the "fall in love" feelings and Paul had more of the "this could realistically work well for us" mindset). We were so thrilled to find that we could get a larger yard, and a little more square feet than the resales we had been touring. After we saw the model and the lot on Saturday, we went up to Prescott to see what my parents would advise. They helped us brainstorm a lot of questions and concerns we should address before moving forward, and then they came back down to Phoenix with us Monday morning. We sat and had all our questions answered, and my parents both thought this would be a good choice for us. It was important to Paul and me that we have both of our parents' support, since we trust their judgement and they have much more homebuying experience than us! It finally came down to, "why wouldn't we move forward with this?" I'll admit, I was the enthusiastic one, and Paul was the cautious one, but we did come to an agreement that we would put down our deposit and sign the contract. Yay!

{we're so excited!}

The home is in a stunning location with beautiful mountains on 3 sides. It's really close to a large lake here in AZ and a huge recreational attraction. Even though the neighborhood feels "out in the country" it's actually just about 7 minutes to the closest shopping area. We have a large yard and our neighbors aren't right on top of us, which was one of our disappointments with Phoenix real estate we'd seen so far. Something that both Paul and I feel excited for is that the home just feels like it will cultivate a "slower" pace of life. It's quiet and surrounded by such beautiful creation, we both are praying that this will be a home where we will draw nearer to the Lord individually and as a family, without a lot of distractions. The sales lady pointed out to me a couple neighbors on our street and around the block who are also newlyweds, and there is a mix between young families and older retirees.

{our cute little street}

We feel so incredibly blessed and peaceful that God has lead us to this home. I am looking forward to "putting down roots" here and investing in our community and our church. It'll be a while before we actually get to move into our new home, but I'll keep you all updated. Our next step is to head to the "design center" in a couple weeks to choose some of the finishings for the home. You know I'm looking forward to that ;)