It all began on our way home from Thanksgiving. We were almost to our house in Camarillo when Victoria was asking why grandma and papa lived so far away. I told her it wasn’t them that lived far away, it was us that lived far away from the rest of the family. Ryan was trying to explain that we “can’t afford” to move from Camarillo, as in, that’s where his job had been established and where we had our house and our condo. But, we had no family in the area and being a math minded person I heard “can’t afford” as we literally can’t afford to live anywhere else. And in my mind, the cost is living in Camarillo is almost twice as much as living where my family all lived. So… It was an emotional night when we got home.
But, Ryan was finally at least somewhat open to the idea of moving closer to my family, because he knew how important family was to me, and saw me go through three pregnancies with family being hours away, and mom having to drive three hours for each unexpected early deliver. So… I started looking at real estate closer to Visalia, but not necessarily in town, until we finally decided we would just move into town with everyone else. He was thinking we would move before the school year started, and I was just excited that we may get to be closer to family, even if it was 6 or more months out.
Well, God had different plans. Ryan happened to start looking online for jobs in Visalia and found two that were the same position he had in Camarillo. He reached out to a friend that was working at the local branch of one the banks, and he got him in touch with the Visalia branch. It all happened so quickly from them seeing his resume, to a phone interview, to another phone interview, to an in person interview, to a job offer.
And also in that same amount of time, we decided to list our house, so we were packing like mad people to get it show ready, having open houses left and right, and looking at houses online in Visalia. We came out one weekend to look at several houses in person. The night we were driving here, God answered a prayer I had prayed earlier in the week. I had asked Him to please send us our house on Friday, and Friday evening a new listing came up! My awesome friend, who is also our real estate agent, got us a showing the next day and we saw the house that would become our home. It was the last house of the day, and it was two story, and we really wanted a single story, but when I saw the back yard, I was sold. Then I saw the loft upstairs and knew it would be a perfect playroom. So, we put it an offer, and were praying that our buyers would accept our counter offer to their counter offer. They did. It was definitely an adventure getting our house closed there and here simultaneously, but thanks to both of our amazing agents (and friends), and the big man upstairs, it all happened in the right amount of time. We literally got the keys on Friday and Ryan started his job on Monday… after 3 trips in a 26 foot Uhaul truck (plus a blown tire, a broken engine, and 2 vomits ? all in the same day but across 3 vehicles).
So we are here in our new home, Ryan is enjoying his new job, I’m still working for the same company that originally was the reason I moved down south for, and the kids are loving having a playground of their own.
And, of course, we love love love seeing family all the time! ❤️