The Search

After a few months of feeling like we needed to look elsewhere to live, we began the search.  We thought a lot about location.  Should we move out of Gibert and into Queen Creek for Stephen to be closer to work?  There were pros and cons.  The prices were cheaper in Queen Creek but we would be in a less desirable school district and much farther away from shopping, the dance studio, friends, the temple, etc.  We thought we knew the exact location where we should live.  Right on the border between the two, so we could all be happy.  We looked at a lot of houses.  Many were almost perfect, but we never felt right about any of them.  There were a few close calls, where we thought we had found "the one" but then we would slow down and think about it.  And we would always be led away from that home.  We had tossed around the idea of building our own home here and there but it seemed so overwhelming, especially since there were a lot of great houses on the market.  At the end of the day, we realized that we wanted a few key features in our forever home and that we weren't willing to go without them.  We would rather stay where we were than buy a home that we didn't love.  Around this time we came across a one-acre lot for sale in a great neighborhood nearby.  It was destined to be.  Unbeknownst to us, the owner of the lot was a friend's Dad and he was willing to make a great offer to unload the property.  We agreed to the terms and felt totally at peace.  We had bought some property on Plum Ct.  We closed in October of 2011.  We weren't sure when we would build, but we were sure glad to have our land securely in our hands.

Jaren at the lot, October 2011:

The beginning

At first we passed the thoughts off as mere wanderlust.  These strange feelings that after only about 3.5 years in our home, it was already time to move on.  It was the longest we had ever lived at one address, and maybe we were just feeling a little bit restless?  But as the months passed by, it became clear that our adorable home on Kimball Ct would not be our "forever home."  I'm not going to list the reasons why we decided to leave.  It's personal and prayerful.  I will say that it is not because our home wasn't "enough."  It was more than enough, and we are grateful for every minute we spent in it.  It has hosted some amazing family gatherings, holds some beautiful family memories and was the first home we ever owned.  It is beyond special and we will miss it immensely.  I can't believe that Jaren, who is now 6, wasn't even walking when we first moved in. 

Our home on Kimball Ct. right after we bought it:

 And a few years later after we put some grass in the front:

 

At the end of the day, this story is not about Kimball Ct. It's about Plum Ct. And the fulfilling of our dream to one day design and build a home that our grandchildren will visit us at.