What did you do this summer?

Well hello there strangers!  For the few that have been waiting on a post from me, I apologize! Life happened and well,  things got a bit nutso up in here… buying and selling of a home concurrently is something I don’t recommend doing.  The good news? I didn’t have a nervous breakdown, that’s something, right? 😉

photo credit: monojussi via photopin cc

Summer vacay is over in a blink, just like most good things in life.  Since I didn’t do any blogging over the summer, I thought I’d jump back in like we used to in school (I may be dating myself here), with, “What did you do this summer”? Here is my version of that childhood memory. (please forgive the quality of some photos as they were captured with my phone)

What usually kicks off Summer for us is our annual trip to Mont Tremblant, Quebec. We go there with some of our very dearest friends, as you can see… we had a blast!

So much info to wade through… for those of you that don’t read this blog all of the time;  we are a military family and we were posted this summer (posted = moving to another base within Canada). When we received that posting message there were so many emotions, the sadness of leaving amazing friends and leaving a community after 10 years of root laying and memory building. The Military was asking us to leave our beautiful 1854 farm house, a home steeped in history with a lot of our own blood sweat and tears poured into making it, our little slice of heaven.  It was our very first home, it had/has so much charm and character.  I’d lay awake at night, (actually I didn’t sleep very much at all for a few months) how will we ever find a home that will challenge and interest us, something that we will love as much as this little place?

The picture of us at Mont Tremblant, me hanging onto that rope (for dear life I might add) and Bud just going for it,  speaks volumes about who we really are. Ya we like to have fun, but the real meaning I see in this picture is that we tend to jump in, even though our faces may not look like we are 100% confident. We are a team and that sense of adventure is a stronger pull for both of us, stronger than almost anything. Many, many people have asked us how we could give up that home? You see, while the Military did post us, we did have options. Early retirement for Bud would mean we could stay put. Our new Military base was only an hour and a half from where this little farm house sits, another option, a 3 hour commute for Bud every day. These options did not fit into how we saw our future, so we put our little “comfort zone” on the market… having said that, I thought we’d be swamped with people clamouring to buy our house (that’s a bit conceited) instead for the first month and a half all we heard were crickets! Yikes!

The selling part was one thing, the buying, well that was a whole other story. It took us two years of hunting for that little farm house and this time around we did not have two years to find our new home… no stress at all!  We looked (that became my full time obsession) for homes to go see, we stayed focused on the older farm style homes, disappointment after disappointment,  so we had a chat. Lets look outside of our very focused zone, we stared to look at newer homes. Could we find a newer, non-cookie cutter house? We only had to look at two newer homes, and the second one had us at hello! This is the view we saw as we crested the driveway!

Let me stop there. The feeling we had as we drove around the little bend in the driveway was the EXACT same feeling we had when we saw our little farm house. How could that be? We loved the character and charm of that old farm house. And, while this was a newer home (11 years old) the original builder took great pains of keeping the property looking like it’s always been there… the house is set way off the road, just a tiny glimpse of it is visible for a passing car. I’m going on and on now, the virtues of this house may not be apparent at first glance, but we could see in our minds eye what she could and will be… just like we did for our first home! <3

At the beginning of this post I promised a, “What you did this summer”, well here it is in pictures, hope you’re still awake with all the blabbing I’ve done.

In a nut shell, this is what we have been up to… selling our home, buying a new home, farewell parties, hunting treasures or hoarding (fine line), moving day, graduations, bonfires, guitars, exploring, meeting new friends and rib fests, Canada Day and lots of trips to Lowe’s.

We’ve also been painting, exploring nature, going to drive-ins and having the sweetest people pay us visits! Oh and while this adventure begins, we’re also trying to live healthier.

Thanks for reading, it was like visiting with some old firends. My next post is all of the before shots of our new little home, with that of course comes all of the new plans and projects! 😀  This new home needs some major rescue work, you’ll see! But, we are beyond excited at this next chapter in our lives and I sure hope you’ll join in on the evolution as we make this our new “comfort zone”!

~ Laurie xo

PS. You may have also noticed a new look on the site, still tinkering with that, but let me know what you think so far? I actually have tons of stuff going on behind the scenes, besides the before tour of the new place, I have someone I want to introduce to you… she has a little barn and it’s filled to the rafters with goodies! She encourages me in my hoarding collecting! Have a great day and thanks again for stopping in!