City Girl to Mountain Mom- life’s adventures
Yep……That’s right I’m a City girl true and true, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to pack up and move somewhere else. Somewhere different, like those movies with the small home town vibe and all the little frame trucks everywhere. I guess I just always wondered what it would be like to raise our kids in that kind of an environment. You know where everyone knows everyone!?!
My husband and I have been married for over 15 years and I’ve always said from the beginning that someday we would have a house with a big wrap around porch and two rockers on it. One for me and one for him! Of course, we all have had those white picket fence dreams. Right!?!
I couldn’t shake it though. As our marriage moved through time we had more children(4 munchkins total) and out grew our current home that was on the edge of town. We began pondering the idea of moving. My husband was initially against the thought as he hates changes. Like truly hates it lol! But he humored me. We looked at houses on and off for over 3 years! That’s right 3 years of house hunting. We couldn’t find anything that was the right fit for our family. We looked at new homes, old homes, property no property it was never ending. Frustrated and overwhelmed we were at a loss.
We had about given up, but I was still obsessed with Zillow. I stopped looking at everything though and made a very specific list of exactly what we wanted in a home. My list looked something like this:
5 bedroom
2 and half + bath
at least 1/2 an acre
game room
large laundry room
3 car garage
under X amount of $- yes, even with my huge list, remember we are a family of 6 I had a tight budget especially for CA.
I then took our list and searched Zillow high and low. I really pushed out of our realm of ideal living zones and looked everywhere with in about 75 miles of where we currently lived. I found a few more options, but still didn’t find the one! If you have ever been house hunting you know what I mean by the one! Lol!
Then Easter came….. yes, ? Easter! We went to a family members house for Easter and they lived in the foothills. As horrible as it sounds I was so jealous of the serenity of their little piece of paradise. I mean I was happy for them just sad that I couldn’t find that for us. On our way home my husband and I both were kinda in awe of their place in the hills and we discussed how awesome it must be to live there. We decided then that we only live once and we wanted to live somewhere that was like being on vacation every day.
As some of you know I’m a nurse which allows me to work 12 hour shifts allowing me to be off and kind of a stay at home mom the other half of the year. That being said I wanted to really enjoy those stay at home moments with our kids in our own piece of paradise that half of the year that I am home. I thought the mountains, what a dreamy way to live! Snow days, lake days, sunrises and sunsets…..!
We really pondered this new thought of living in the mountains. Do people really live there? Like real life? Or is all retired people? Like how do they do it? Do you commute? What does mountain life really look like? (Don’t worry we will share all that info with you too eventually)
We decided to reach out to our realtor and set up and entire day of looking at houses that fit our criteria in this dreamy little mountain community. We took our youngest son who was 4 at the time. I wanted to see how he liked and reacted to the area. Of course he loved it! ( rocks and dirt, what little boy wouldn’t!?!)
As we went from house to house we grew more and more in love with the tiny mountain community around us! The last house that we looked at for the day was it! We had finally found the one! It meet all of our wish list and then some.
Unfortunately, as soon as we went to put in a offer the house had been pulled from the market. Little did we know it was still destined to be our future home, but we were so disappointed. What it did show us is how much we really wanted our future home. Long story short, after months of back and fourth we finally were able to sell our previous home and purchase our dream home in the mountains!
And that’s how it happened….. This city girl is now a Mountain Mom. Now, all that’s left to do is remodel the entire house! Remember, I said dream home not move in ready! So here’s to our adventures of remodeling. We can’t wait to share our journey with all of you as we work our new house into a home.
Check back soon for our House to Home updates!
Our new home!
XOXO- Karen Renee ?
