We're BACKKKK!!!

Wow... I cant believe how long its been since I've last blogged. Life has sure changed significantly since our last post. In a nutshell, we sold our house in Maryland and are moving to Idaho!!! It's shocking, exciting, scary, sad, unbelievable, anxious, nervous -- pretty much every emotion under the sun! And our journey to get to this point has been very emotion-fluctuating as well.

Here's the extended version:

We'd been thinking about moving out west for many years, but the timing wasn't ever quite right -- kids, jobs, life-happened! We decided earlier in the year that the life we wanted to have for our kids and family would involve less commuting, more outdoor time, and less job-focused-stress; and all of that was going to be most possible living out west. We've loved the Boise area every time we've visited, and Matt's relatives live there - including his Mom and Dad-Dale, so it seemed like a great fit. We also knew if we ever were going to be serious about moving, now was the time... so Matt put the house on Zillow on "Make Me Move" (since we couldnt afford to pay the 6% realtor fees, we thought we'd give this option a try and until we figured out what to do next). Well, the next day we were doing an iPhone FaceTime tour of our home, and then the following day a live in-person tour, and the third day we had a contract presented to us. The entire process was unconventional and so foreign to us, but things just kept falling into our lap, we couldn't ignore it. Change is hard.... It's very hard!! But when things keep falling into place, we have to believe that it's the right thing and trust in God that this is part of His plan.

After the contract on the house was in place, we knew the buyers wanted to be in the house quickly, so we put things in high gear. And I mean high gear!! We flew out to Boise the following week and I did quite a few job interviews. We scoped out neighborhoods we liked and made notes on what we'd want in our dream home.

Once arriving back in MD, we did a massive house clean-out: piling up anything we didnt want to take with us. 

We had a big yard sale! (this picture is from mid-morning, so most of the good stuff was already gone). What didn't sell, we gave away.

With our remaining household "keep" items, the 28 foot shipping container came.... I started frantically boxing stuff up.

 Matt started stacking all the boxes....

Only to realize that I had packed many different size boxes. Whoops! So then he was Spiderman playing tetris! Jamming every single nook and cranny!

...Meanwhile, our home was a disaster -- boxes were everywhere!

We then had some movers come and help load the heavy stuff into the trailer. They seemed to be moving quickly so we had them load the rest of the house up...... well, when they finished, the trailer was practically full and we still had quite a bit of stuff in the house! Mattresses, a TV, and plenty of other odds and ends. Matt stood on a bunk bed ladder scoping out the trailer (I freaked out worrying he would fall!). After his inspection of their packing, he found tons of gaps and wasted space.

Soooooooo he unpacked over 2/3 the trailer......

And started repacking more snugly. As he was packing, I would often find him wedged up top, with only his legs and feet visible. It's like a "Where's Waldo" picture here!

After 3 days of intense unpacking/repacking, he got it all in!! With less than two inches to spare!! :)

We might not have smiled through the whole packing process, but at least we had a smile at the end!

The shipping container is now in Idaho awaiting our move. We sold our home to an amazing couple that we developed a friendship with during our Zillow process. We've moved into my parents' house temporarily until we leave for Idaho in July, and have had some wonderful grandparent bonding.... also known as "grandparents take over while we take a breather from our crazy boys". ;) :) In the meantime, we found a gorgeous home in Idaho -- and actually did a FaceTime tour of it!! We put an offer on it without physically setting foot in the house! Insane! We don't even buy a pair of shoes online! But the house was beautiful and in our ideal neighborhood, and was on a great lot. The offer was accepted, inspection went well (which we went out to Idaho for), and we close on the home in July. More details to come....