Strong Roots: Home Sweet Home

We found the house of our dreams! We looked and looked. We were not able to find a house in time before we had to be out of our house in Norman. Sounds crazy, two toddlers, pregnant, no house but wow, God is good! He had good plans, great plans. We had put an offer on a house on our old street where we rented a duplex during dental school. It was a dreamy street and had several stay at home moms on it which made it even more dreamy! The owner did not accept our offer which I was devastated about. However, he did have a bungalow a street over that he said he would be willing to rent us month to month while we continued to look.

That bungalow was the answer to prayer that we never prayed for! It was such a sweet time. We were able to move right in, it was totally renovated, there was nothing to be done. This allowed me to just relax and enjoy the kids during my last three months of pregnancy. It had the dreamiest kitchen ever and I just wanted to be in there all the time! A great couple with two boys moved in next door at the same time and we had a blast hanging out. It was 22nd street which is one over from 23rd street and I had been a little weary about the foot traffic. However, the only foot traffic I really saw was the guy who always waved at us every day at 3 pm when he was walking by with his two six packs of beer from the convenience store. Ha! I did have a little culture shock coming back from a year in Norman to the vibrant diversity of downtown OKC. I had forgotten that I would be asked for money every time I went to the Walmart on 23rd street and at first it took me by shock but now it is home sweet home! Great opportunities abound to love on people.

I cried when we left that bungalow and I don't cry often. It was a special four months of rest, restoration, and hope for the coming year.

We put an offer on a second house and also got beat out by someone. As we continued looking at houses, our opinions about what we were looking for changed. At first we thought we needed the house we were going to live in forever. It had to be big enough for four kiddos at least and that meant it had to be a fixer upper in our price range. The two previous houses we had put offers on needed a lot of work. They had great potential but much work to be done. We finally wised up and realized that with three little ones we just couldn't do that work and didn't want to have people in our house doing work constantly.

We always walk to the park on 20th street and I had seen this house and told Dan, " I wish that house was for sale". The front of this house was just my dream. It was a craftsmen bungalow style and it just screamed, "inviting, homey, cozy". It just seemed like our style. I love the little peaked roofs.

Sure enough, God being so kind to use, got us the house! It had a for sale by owner sign in the yard two weeks later. We were the only people to look at it and we put an offer on it that night. We became good friends with the sweet older couple selling and it was just a pleasant experience all the way around. Everyone on the block told us we got a steal of a deal which made us feel great too! We already knew two families on our street from when we lived here before and our block boasts the highest amount of kids under the age of five in the entire neighborhood. My dream come true! We are about to have our first ever block party and I am in high heaven. Many a night is spent on our front lawn talking to neighbors while our kids play. There is a strong bond between neighbors here because you have to be pretty passionate about living in a historic area to move in to the neighborhood. There historically has not been a guarantee of good schools after elementary and many "rough areas" around our neighborhood not to mention-no good grocery stores! But that is part of the fun, there is so much momentum for changing things and downtown is becoming alive and vibrant. I love that we can walk everywhere and I love that we have become friends with former drug addicts and people who live in million dollar homes. It is incredible.