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Two years ago today, I married the man of my dreams and we officially started building our life together.

Photograph by Kamin

For the first 11 months of our 17 month engagement, we were apartment dwellers and soon realized our dreams of becoming home-owners. We wanted a fixer-upper, something we could live in for a while and then turn around and sell. Unfortunately, since I was still in college and Patrick was self-employed, we were unable to get a mortgage on our own. We were a little frustrated and ready to get out of our apartment, when Patrick’s parents offered to help us. Directly behind their property, separated only by an acre strip of land, sat an old barn that had been converted into a house on 4 beautiful, peaceful partially-wooded acres. It had 7 foot ceilings and lacked central heat and air, but with a little elbow-grease, I could tell that it had real potential. We were all sure that it would be a great investment.

House listed here.

We began working on the house in the Summer of 2007, and were moved in by that Fall. We added on a huge deck, gutted the kitchen, ripped up layers of linoleum flooring, and added on an addition. The addition, however, was not complete until October 2009, the day I went into labor with our son, Alston. This barn-turned-cottage had become our first home and we loved it dearly. We celebrated 3 Christmases, Alston’s First Birthday, and one Anniversary there.

When the time came for us to have it put in our name, we realized that, even though we lived there and paid the high-interest monthly payments every month for the past 2 years, it would be quite a while before we would be able to purchase that house. This was bad news for everyone involved. So after much debate, we decided to put the house up for sale and rent it out until it sold. I prayed much. After posting the house on Craigslist and receiving a reply only an hour and forty-five minutes later, I realized that God was giving me confirmation that we were making the right decision. In March of this year, we moved out of our first home and into Patrick’s parents’ house with high hopes of finding our first real home before Alston’s second birthday.

So this is where we are and how we got here.