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Almost two months ago we made the decision to put our house on the market. We felt like we needed to be in Fayette to be closer to CMU for both ourselves and for Stephanie. We had already begun our search in Fayette when we put our Boonville house on the market and we quickly found a house we liked. It was priced a little high but we negotiated the price down almost 20K and found financing through a local bank who would also give us a renovation loan. This house would need 40K+ to bring it into the current century and to make it our taste. We went through several negotiations with the seller and finally agreed upon an offer. This was great news but it was all hinging on us selling our current home.
Back in the Boonville house things were going well. In the first month we had over 3 showings each week but nothing came of it. Meanwhile the house in Fayette continued to be on the market since it was contingent on the sale of our home. Enter the month of August and with it came fewer showings on our house. We even had a stretch of no showings for 10 days! We were beginning to get worried that nothing was going to happen this fall and we might have to wait until spring to get a house in Fayette.
While our house was sitting here with only a few lookers the Fayette house had a new offer presented to the sellers. They accepted the offer and last Wednesday we got the call that the 72 hour kick out clause was put into effect. Essentially it meant that we had until Friday morning to decide what to do with the house. Now you may be thinking that there was only one option…we’d have to say no to the Fayette house. But you know us, we got creative and a little crazy.
We figured out what our house payment would be on the Fayette house and we could cover the monthly payment for a bit. It was a risky thing to consider but we thought we could do it. However, we still needed money for the down payment. On our Boonville house Lucas’ parents graciously gave us a down payment (and then some) so they have money tied up in this. But if we’re getting family involved then we might as well get everyone in the mix. So last Wednesday (on my Mom’s birthday!) I called her to ask if they could give us a large sum of money. There is nothing better on your birthday than giving away your savings. :) My parents are very generous but we honestly didn’t think they would say yes. They talked about it that night and on Thursday morning my mom called to say that they would do it! Even though this was great news, Lucas and I still had to make the ultimate decision of moving forward on the Fayette house. On Friday morning, after much prayer and discussion, we decided we would take it! Call us crazy, call us stupid but we took a huge leap of faith and did it! That means on September 7 we will officially own a house in Fayette.
While we were definitely excited and happy to know we would be moving to Fayette eventually, we still had the huge task of selling our Boonville house. We had been having a few showings but nothing too serious. Then on Sunday night Lucas showed the house to a couple who seemed interested enough and it turns out they loved it because on Monday we received an offer! The price was a little low but the biggest thing was the offer wasn’t contingent on them selling a house! They were just offering to buy our house and all we had to do was negotiate a price. We ended up agreeing on a price that was $3,500 less than our asking price and we were pretty happy with that. But just to keep us in reality, since we haven’t owned this house that long, and we put in quite a bit of work, and with the crazy realtor costs we are actually loosing around $8,000. But this is a sacrifice we felt like we would make in order to be in Fayette.
So to wrap it all up…on September 7 we will say hello to this house…
And on September 26 we will say goodbye to this one…
We are hoping to get some renovations done on the Fayette house before we actually move in but who knows what will happen. All I know is we will be in Fayette at the end of September! We just praise God in all of this (even with financial losses) and we know He is guiding us as we try to follow His call.
-Shannon
I really have no idea where to start. The past few weeks have been a bit crazy for us so to start the ball rolling I’m going to list everything in bullet points. Hopefully many of these bullet points will turn into their own blog posts but we’ll see…
Let’s start at the beginning of June…
June 3 – Lucas and I travel to Springfield by way of Joplin to see his hometown after the devastating tornado
June 3-5 – We spend the weekend in Springfield where Lucas attends Annual Conference for the Missouri Methodist Church
June 5 – I drop Lucas at the airport where he flies to the east coast to chaperone a trip with high school students interested in theology
June 5-11 – Lucas is gone and my mom comes up to visit and keep the Os and I company
June 10 – Owen has a pediatrician appointment and we find out he is lead free!!!
June 11 – I go by myself to pick Lucas up at the airport. On the way home he says he has something crazy to share with me. While on his trip to the east coast he connected with several students from LPI (the school we visited on our spring break mission trip). They tell him some heartbreaking stories about college plans falling through. He feels a stirring in his heart to bring them to CMU. In the 2 hour drive back to Boonville we decide to open our home up to as many students as we can!
June 17 – Five days after feeling called to bring students here, Lucas has already raised over $45,000 in scholarship money for the students! One student is ready to come and we’re seeing about others! So this fall we will have a student living with us full time. We will be her room and board and Lucas raised funds to pay for her tuition! We can’t praise God enough!
June 15-25 – We realize that it would be best if we lived in Fayette instead of Boonville.
June 14-28 – We find a property in Fayette (a loft on the square) that could work for our situation. We visit it several times.
June 26 – We put an offer on the loft (several days later they counter with full asking price plus more earnest money)
June 26-29 – We have a work crew of my mom, Lucas’ parents and our friend Gaby who help us do several projects on the house to get it ready to sell.
June 30 – We put our house on the market!
July 1 – We have our first showing with calls for others!
July 2 – We look at another house in Fayette that would need major renovation but we could finish it how we like it.
WHEW! Do you see why I haven’t been blogging?!?! :)
So, dear friends, the biggest thing I ask from you is for prayer. We need lots of discernment during this time as we have many decisions to make especially with the housing situation. Our goal is to be in Fayette by the start of the school year but the worst case scenario is we stay in our current house a bit longer. And really we love this house so that wouldn’t be too bad. :) So there is our life in the past month.
We’ve felt kind of nervous sharing our plans with others because to be honest it’s a bit crazy. But we feel God’s leading in all of this and we’re doing what we feel called to do. It might not always make sense but when did Jesus say following him would make sense? I’m sure there will be many more posts to come about all of this stuff but at least now we have it all out in the open. More updating to come…
-Shannon
Last night as we were winding down the day we decided to go for a quick walk on the Katy Trail. This trail is an old railroad line that is now used as a bike trail across most of Missouri. It passes through Boonville so we are able to take advantage of it rather easily. But in our few months of living here, I had never stepped foot on it. Last night that changed.
It is surrounded by trees and growth.
But every once in awhile you get glimpses out into the fields and far away.
Throughout our walk I kept stopping to take pictures of the sunset happening around us.
We will definitely have to make this a regular occurrence…especially now that we can enjoy the cool of the evening.
-Shannon
Welcome to the 5th and final installment from our Vancouver Girls Reunion! I had a bit of a forced break due to some family stuff that I’ll fill you in on soon. But for the last post on the visit from my friends I thought it was only fitting to share from our photoshoot together. We had a wonderful photographer (Lucas) and a bossy assistant (me) but everything turned out wonderful and we got some great shots!
The whole photoshoot idea really came from Grace when she found a website where she could design some t-shirts for us. So she took care of it all and we walked away with matching shirts! And really it isn’t a reunion without matching shirts. :)
So the photoshoot began on the front steps…
Fake laughing…
Turns into real laughing…
Which morphs into high fives!
And back to the real photoshoot…
Next we moved down to the brick wall by the shop…
And who doesn’t stand around a casually talk during a photoshoot…
Or climb the walls!
And we had to show off the back of our shirts which had all our names on it…
Had a get a laying on the grass pose…
And finally back to the porch with the babies…
I’m so glad we took these pictures and that Lucas was up for it. :)
It still feels surreal that these friends were actually in our house but I’m so glad they were. Hopefully we will have more reunions in the future and who knows what friends will make it there. But for this time I’m so glad Katie B., Baby Evelyn, Grace, Jess & Katie C. were able to make it to Boonville.
-Shannon
Surely you didn’t think I’d make it through my Vancouver Girls Reunion series without a post about babies?!?! I mean there were two in my house! It was too much to resist. :)
When we began planning this girly getaway we decided to do it without husbands or kids. However Katie and I are still nursing our little ones so everyone decided it was ok if ours tagged along…plus it would’ve been hard to ignore Owen for 4 days while they were here in our home. :)
So along came Evelyn! She is 5 weeks younger than Owen and she is Owen’s Scottish girlfriend. Well she isn’t really Scottish, she is American but she was born in Scotland. So any way you slice it she’s unique in Owen’s world. The two of them loved getting to know each other…
I picture Owen saying, “Whoa! She’s tall!” And it’s true…Evelyn is tall and skinny (like her parents) and Owen is average and plump (like his parents). :)
They enjoyed tummy time together…
They each enjoyed more cuddles than a baby knows what to do with…
And they loved their matching Bumbos! If you think two babies in Bumbos are cute then put them in their jammies and they’re even cuter!
Miss Evelyn…she had never been in a Bumbo and she loved to lean…
Mister Owen…a.k.a. Baby Zoolander
I was sad I couldn’t see all of my friend’s children but I know we were all glad to have the two smallest ones around.
-Shannon
What do you do when you get a bunch of friends together, some of whom haven’t seen each other in 3+ years? You hang out and do a bunch of nothing!
After our few outings we were ready to just sit back and relax. This “relaxing” took several different forms. There was the always popular hanging out in the kitchen.
Of course there was some drinking involved…mojitos!
And we had to bust out some Molson as a tribute to Canada. Don’t worry, Katie C. wasn’t drinking as she is currently with child!
And when we weren’t drinking we were eating…
And when we weren’t eating we were playing the Wii…
And when we weren’t playing the Wii we were watching the washing machine (it’s that awesome!)…
And when we weren’t doing any of these things we were hugging…
You can see that even during our hanging out time we kept pretty busy. :)
-Shannon
When the girls were here I didn’t feel a need to plan too many things because I knew we’d be content to just sit around and talk. However, there were a few things we ventured out of the house for and it was a nice mix of relaxing and doing.
Their first full day in Boonville we took a nice walk around town. Here are Grace, Jess, Katie C., and Katie B. all ready to go…
We walked to the edge of the river and tried to take group shot. We captured the group but not the river.
We came across these ginormous flowers and couldn’t pass them by.
Later that day we headed up to Fayette to visit Lucas at CMU. Here he is trying to get Katie and Jess to come to school there. :)
On Saturday we headed to The 63 Diner for lunch. Jess had been here as a child with her grandma.
It was nice to have a few times of going out and about. And I loved showing these girls our new hometown and where Lucas works. It’s so surreal to have had them in this place with us.
-Shannon
Several months ago my friend Jess sent an e-mail saying how wonderful it would be if friends from our Vancouver days could get together. We all thought it sounded wonderful but we all live in the real world and it probably wouldn’t happen with kids, money and time standing in the way. But then we started really thinking about it and we figured a way to make it work. What if everyone traveled to Boonville and then stayed at the Endicott B&B for free. The only real cost would be travel for all the other girls and I would supply the food and drink. When we came up with this plan we put it in motion. Several months and hundreds of e-mails later, they were here!
I spent the week cleaning and scrubbing while Lucas finished up some last minute projects. There’s nothing like having friends visit to accomplish projects. One of my last tasks was to buy all the food and drink and I think I did a sufficient job seeing as there was no more room in the fridge or pantry…
We were a little low on drinks and all we had to choose from was water, milk, oj, coke, grape koolaid, pink lemonade, 6 different kinds of beer, margaritas, mojitos, rum & coke, wine and, of course, sweet tea! And the food was the same…we had SO much. Each meal I would post what it was on our handy chalkboard in the kitchen…
While I was busy preparing, the girls were busy traveling to me. Katie B. flew from Oregon, Grace flew from Idaho, Katie C. flew from Vancouver and Jess drove from Kansas and picked everyone up at the airport. Some shots from the journey to Boonville…Jess, Katie B. and Evelyn (Katie’s daughter and Owen’s playmate)
And add in Grace…
Once they finally arrived it was time for the reuniting to begin. Owen & Evelyn meeting each other…
Katie C. even brought them gifts from Canada…
Katie C., Jess & Grace on our first night together…
We had a lot more fun in store for us in the days ahead…
-Shannon
With the 4th of July visit of Spencer & Abby we had to get a photo shoot with Grace in her patriotic outfit. And no place better than on the front porch…
And look at those bloomers…
-Shannon
Even though there are lots of things we love about our house we are still hit with the reality that it is almost 140 years old! A huge project is repainting the trim around the outside of the windows and the corbels around the roof line of the house. Lucas thought we’d have this priced out to see if we could hire someone seeing as the top roof line is almost 50 feet high. After receiving an estimate back that was way out of our price range, Lucas decided to give the job a go himself!
I was a little nervous to have Lucas up on a ladder that tall but he pulled everything together that he needed and did it! Here he is hard at work…
I wish I would’ve taken some with the full height of the house but here are some of the front and you can see the work he’s done on the top windows as compared to the bottom ones which we’re still working on…
It still makes me cringe to think of him up on that ladder…
-Shannon
P.S. I picked this title because I thought of the song, Such Great Heights. As I was writing this and listening to Pandora the song started playing! Freaky!
