Beginning Another Chapter

I have been praying for a couple of years about having a "home away from home" in the town that we "live" in but don't live in.  You see, we go to church 35 miles away.  Our son goes to school 35 miles away.  I have been working 35 miles away.  The grocery store is 35 miles away.  And even though there is a smaller town 6 miles from us with a school and church, we were CERTAIN that God lead us to the church and school we're apart of...35 miles away.

This has posed a challenge for our family as we have made the trek back and forth what seems like a gazillion times.  Sometimes the days are so long the we find ourselves running for 14 hours straight to drive home, sleep, and drive back to start it all over again.  Some days activities are so spread out that we either have to try to find things to do for hours on end or we drive the 70 miles round trip twice in one day.

It can be exhausting, and unnecessary, especially for a child.

So I have prayed, and daydreamed, and prayed, and chatted with hubby and friends, and prayed.  And I kept my eye on the local real estate listings for "fun." I thought it would just be perfect to find a house with an apartment or cottage on it.  We could use the cottage for ourselves and rent out the house to cover the mortgage.

This Spring we knew it was time to move forward and get a little more serious about our search.  To make a long story short, here is a timeline of some events:

March 22nd- contacted an agent and began viewing houses
April 28th- found "the" house with a perfect walk-out basement to make into an apartment
April 30th -we were planning to make an offer on the house but we stalled and later found out about another property that The Prairie Daddy was very interested in
May 2nd- viewed the new property and met with the bank and made an offer
May 4th- went into contract on the property
June 4th- closed and were the official new owners

I cannot tell you how exciting this new adventure was/is!  Because we didn't just buy a house with a cottage or basement apartment.  God lead us to buy a fully-functioning vacation rental business that is 4 newly renovated, furnished townhouses.

Let me introduce you to Cody Vacation Housing:

You can also visit us at www.codyvacationhousing.com

So, now I definitely know what I am going to do with myself!  I am going to be managing our new business!  And so far, I have my work cut out for me!  Especially since I am not done with the last chapter until mid-August.  But God is good and knew that I would be a wild chicken-with-her-head-cut-off this summer trying to balance all of these things.  And this next school year, we will call Townhouse #1 our "home away from home."