Today, we're just about to open a new chapter of our interesting lives! We'll be moving tomorrow from White Rock Ranch (our wonderful rental here) to a new rental up North. As summer wound down, we were hoping to not spend the winter here with the long commute for my husband and the higher heating cost that we would have with this older house that wasn't fully insulated. We began looking into different options and one that came up was the possibility of my husband working for my brother and his father-in-law who are building his house up North by where we're looking to move to and live. After a little discussion, my brother was willing to hire my husband for a few months until his house is done to work on the construction. This would also give my husband good experience in home building since we may choose to build our own home at some point. The only question after that was if we could find a good place to rent that wouldn't be too far away from my brother's house in a very small rural town. We don't want to buy anything until my husband has a permanent job so we know where he'll be working and where we should live.
Anyways, I had seen an ad for a house for rent in my brother's town that looked decent. It had just been listed that day and seemed like it might get rented fast and it was really close to my brother's place so I thought maybe we should go up right away to look at it. We went up Sat. and also looked to see what else we might be able to rent. A friend of my sister-in-law's was visiting when we got there and my sister-in-law told her why we were there (looking for a place to rent). That friend went to a wedding that afternoon and at the wedding heard through a friend that they knew of a family who had moved to Montana and were trying to sell their house but with the slow housing market hadn't been able to sell it. This family was looking to rent out their house (take it off the market) through the winter to have someone there to watch over it etc... So the friend got a hold of the friend of this family who has the key to the house and say we can go look at it that evening. Unfortunately it was the opposite direction from Ashland so I wasn't too excited about it but figured we might as well look. We didn't know any rental details as they hadn't gotten a hold of the owner to talk to them about it yet. So we went over there. It's nicely updated and has 4 bedrooms upstairs and 2 baths and a main floor laundry (the thing I want the most!). It's right on a busy county road, but on 40 acres. It's also next to railroad tracks which is a plus in our household of train-lovers! I sort of liked the house but thought maybe the other one would be better as it was in a better direction from my brother's place. But I decided I'd stay open about it until we knew the rental details. There were a lot of things about the house that fit us well. So later that evening back at Kevin's house the friend of the owner calls back to say he had gotten a hold of the owner and they would rent it for $300/month! As I thought about it, I figured it was completely arranged by the Lord and was exactly what we needed! The friend gave us the owner's phone # so we could contact him directly with questions. The next night Leland contacted the owner of the house to talk directly to him. The owner said he'd talk to his realtor this week to see about taking the house off the market and make sure there wasn't any problems there. Monday he called back and said that all was fine for taking it off the market. So after a week of praying and deciding for sure, my husband gave 3 weeks notice to work to quit and now we're at the end of that 3 weeks and moving tomorrow! So it will be interesting to see where the Lord leads us now since our future is still fairly uncertain with no permanent job or home!
Our other news of note was that our baby Jemma Rose was born on Sept 8th (one week before we went up to look for a rental). She was born at home with a wonderful labor and delivery and recovery was better than my previous 3 births and about as good as my first birth! All in all it went as good as I could have hoped! We're enjoying our little bundle and are so glad that it all went so well so I feel normal for moving and all!
We praise the Lord for his provision and care for us during this time! It will be exciting to see who he brings into our lives up there, even though we'll miss our many wonderful friends here!
