You know you’re growing up when you come head to head with questions like “Should we take this new job?” “Should we move states?” “Should we buy a house?” “Should we build a house?”
Y’all know how we answered the first two questions lately. The latter two, though…man. They were big questions that posed themselves in our lives, too, seconds after we decided to leave San Diego back in August. Utah’s housing market has been hot, so we jumped on trying to buy a house right away. Pickings were slim, though. And expensive for options that didn’t really work for our family. Still we tried to find a house in St. George in the middle of packing up our life in SD and while we hunted – so unexpectedly – a little plot of land in the heart of our hometown popped up as an option for our family to go to for forever. In a whirlwind of events, building a house became the option, and before we even left our home on the California Coast, we were drawing plans for our little home-to-be in the desert. We sat on the lot for a month after we moved here (literally – we have visited the lot nearly every day since we got here) to see if we really wanted to build, and/or to see if any good options for buying would pop up (spoiler: nothing popped up). Well two weeks ago, feeling more confident than ever that this little space was right for us, we officially closed on that pretty plot of land. And we are building a house!
You know you’re really lucky and flat-out blessed when you can say all of this, I don’t want to skirt around that in the least. We’re up against a mammoth to-do list with building (it’s *kind of* scary), but we’re grateful for the chance to take a whack at it. We’ll be building a home with open doors, squishy couches, and a food-filled fridge — meaning, we are working with our whole hearts to create a welcoming, warm place for all to come. And if you can’t actually come visit, how I hope you’ll feel some love via the process through the screens. Because you know me, I’ll be putting this adventure in the books. 🙂
Starting with this red-dirt pic above! We had Ryan’s phone set up against a rock on the sidewalk with the self-timer going trying to get this shot; then a passerby saw Ryan running back and forth from the phone and offered to take our pic instead (phew! That stranger saved the day 😉 ). Ryan and I sketched plans for our house that are currently in the architect’s hands for some serious fine-tuning, so we are set to start building after the new year. Till then we get to enjoy our little plot of land as is for the next little bit. Although if you know anything about building a home, then you know to expect lots of bumps and delays and hiccups — here’s to hoping that we really will see some action on this ground in January, haha. I think we will, though (positive thoughts! positive thoughts)!
Feeling excited! And a little anxious. And so grateful! Bring on another adventure. <3
