Ok so to make a very long story hopefully a little bit shorter... (because we're down to 2 weeks and I should prolly be spending all my free time packing...)
You guys. How did we land this house?! I'm still in shock. The first thing to note is that no home purchase would have been possible for us for several years if we'd ended up going to Utah. So even though we're still a little bit sad that the Utah door is closed right now, this is a big fat silver lining. Thank you salaried job.
The second thing to note is that most other homes we looked at in our budget were in pretty rough shape. And also going for $50-100k above asking price. With multiple competing auction offers. Yikes. This market. Sheesh. We were initially hoping to buy around Lake Stevens, WA. Chris Pratt's beautiful home town with amazing schools and, apparently, pricier houses.
And then somehow we stumbled on this cute little new build neighborhood in a quiet town up against the Cascade Mountains? We apparently have a type when it comes to neighborhoods. Tiny suburban offshoot to a slightly larger "town" but out in the middle of "nowhere" where most people don't want to live because the commute is too "long." (Note: Our commute here in Bar Nunn and our commute in Washington will only be 15-20 minutes to Jared's work. Not too shabby. Definitely worth it to us because cheaper home prices for newer builds. And we'll actually have restaurants and a good grocery store and schools in our new town, so it's a big step up.)
Anyway, Jared found this house and fell in love with it and wasn't even paying attention during any of our other home showings because he was too set on getting to this one. We were nervous we wouldn't get it for a while, but the competition isn't as bad in our new small town and now she's ours! Well, she will be on closing day at the end of July. In the meantime we'll be hopping around between Jared's parents and my parents and family reunions for a few weeks.
^^Jared's new commute. It's like this the whole way. She cute.
^^The waterfall/salmon ladder 3 minutes from our house.
^^Looking the other way to the river.
^^Hiking trails 15 minutes from our house. I'm going to need new shoes for this climate. Definitely more muddy than Wyoming.
^^And here are some of the wild raspberries that grow pretty much everywhere! there were tons lining the path to the river and the mountain trail.
In conclusion, it was worth the 15-hour drive both ways to find our new home in Washington over the weekend. A million thanks to my parents for staying with Jack in our home while we made the trek (we wanted to check out the mountain highway going through Montana before we commit to driving a moving truck across it), and we're really, really excited for the area where we'll be living. We're in a rural area a few hours North of Seattle, but within an hour of the ocean and with rivers and hiking right in our backyard. See for yourself:
Stay tuned for yet another new adventure in a vastly different area of the country/world!
Utah->Grenada->Georgia->Wyoming->Washington. Here we go.