Our BIG News!

We are moving!

As many of you know, Kevin and I have been going back and forth on whether or not to pack up and move to Cypress (Northwest Houston area) for a couple of years now. It has never just seemed right to me until now.

Kevin went in to interview for a sales position (here in DFW) about 2 weeks ago and was offered the position, but the guy decided he would be more useful in Houston because of his relationships with the golf course industry guy down there. When he came home and talked to me about it, my intial reaction was to shut it down, and he accepted that, which meant a lot to me. A couple of days later, as we spent a lot of time in the car driving to visit our families over Christmas, we had some time to talk it through. Without the pressure on me, I was able to see that there were far more pros than cons to the idea. Basically the only con is my job, because I love it so much. If I could pack up my school and everybody in it and transport it with me, my life would rock! While I am sad to leave my job, this is an excellent opportunity for Kevin and our family, and I have faith that God will provide me with another job that I love.

Also, a while back when we intially talked about moving this year, our realtor told us that the best possible time would be to list our house in January or February, because of the way the market works around here. As it turns out, that is now perfectly in our timeline. To make matters even more interesting, a house of our floor plan one street away from ours sold for MUCH more than we paid for ours after only 3 days on the market, about one month ago. It just really seems as if everything is pointing in the same direction!

So Kevin accepted the job on Tuesday after Christmas and then we headed down to Cypress (as we had already planned) to stay with friends for New Year's Eve. We planned to talk to some builders in a new neighborhood (Bridgeland) while we were there, and maybe see if they could hold a lot for us near our friends to build on in a couple of months. David Weekley went over and above for us; they would not hold a lot but are going to go ahead and start construction NOW and then hold our house empty for 2 months until we close on June 30th. We also got our lot premium waved and a lot of other incentives, so we were excited. So yes, we are building a house now!

We are using this floor plan, but adding another full bath upstairs, a fireplace, and converting the formal living into a study.



This is a picture of our exact elevation that we have chosen, but with different brick and stone.



And here is OUR brick, stone, and exterior paint colors. With the paint, it is the lighter two colors on the bottom of the page. I am so excited to finally have flagstone on my house. For some reason I love it!



I think we'll love our house, and our neighborhood. It is a master planned community with 900 acres of lakes (residents can rent canoes and paddleboats for free), and also walking and bike trails, pools, splash pads, work out facilities, catch and release fishing, butterfly gardens, etc... It will be a great place to raise kids in the future.

So as it stands right now, our house here should hit the market in the next few days. I have been de-cluttering and packing (staging) like a fool. When it sells, Kevin will be moving to Houston (to stay with a friend) and putting all of our things in storage until we close on our new house at the end of June. I'll be staying here to finish out the current school year. Kevin's mom offered to let me stay with her and it looks like a good option for us, so we'll see.

I could use some prayers to keep myself pulled together throughout this process as I teach my 23 kiddos, look for a new job in a different city, finish graduate school and all of the certification testing that goes along with that, try to see my husband occasionally, sell a house, and build a house. Wow. Also, I must find a job by June 1st in order to ensure that we will get our loan, so I'll be working hard toward that goal.

So anyway, that's our news. We'll keep you updated as things happen, but for now that's where we stand. Thank you for reading my long post!