Our new home

A new home. A place full of possibilities, potential, and promises.
If we didn't want to complicate life this summer...we did not succeed. While living in Arizona, we had a few objectives. Chad had a house, a job and school. He worked hard 40 hours a week and finished a bachelor's degree and decided to move to the next level and complete a Masters. I moved to Arizona to finish my flight schooling, and build hours as a flight instructor...not knowing where where my path would ultimately lead.
Well after Chad finished that Masters degree and I was working at a good job... I needed something more. In the aviation world it is always about moving to bigger and faster airplanes and hoping for more money. Chad's family always told him to move out to California to be with them and the only thing left in Arizona for him was me. As much as I missed my home and my family in Minnesota (and I still do everyday) I knew MN was only a plane ride away. Chad had asked me to marry him so I knew I'd be moving to California.

I applied at Ameriflight in Burbank and was hired to start training in August of 2007. So we made the move. Chad didn't have a job, and his generous family pitched in and offered to have us stay with them. So we packed our life up onto a Uhaul and moved in with Chad's sister Darla. Sweet Darla :) With four boys, Grandma, our dog and our bird... whew. That made for a FULL household, I'm not going to lie and say it was stress free. .. there was always something going on.
From the start we knew we couldn't live there forever. So we hunted...and hunted. Houses in California are depressingly not cheap. We were looking at 1,000 sq ft condos for $450,000!

We started looking at the foreclosure market. Surely there would be better bargains in this market of falling house prices. Then Chad's Aunt Cheryl told us to check out a house auction. Here...homes for selling for half of what they are worth!!

Well through all of this and headache after headache we found our lovely new nest. Did I mention doing all of the paperwork and negotioating and contacts WHILE planning a wedding? Aunt Cheryl said it best when she said, "There are three things stressful in a person's life: Getting married, buying a house and having a baby. Remember that you two are doing two of these things at once."
We signed the escrow papers on the 15th of August. I left for Minnesota for the wedding prep on the 16th. The money went through on the 22nd and we got married on the 23rd. Now that's life intertwined.

Here are pictures of the new house: