Check out our new house....as long as escrow goes smoothly!!

This is it! The process started on May 11, a little over 3 weeks ago, but really years and years ago. I have always longed in my heart for community and friendship. I knew very early on that I wanted to live life at Open Door Fellowship, share life, whatever that looked like, happy times, hard times, hurtful times, silly times and even Beer Pong times!! I knew I wanted to be married and have kids. I want my children to play with Emolyn, Madison, Baby Pinkerton, David, Zoe, Maci and whoever else comes along in this process. Again, my heart longs for this, it's who God has created me to be. Then I met Andy and after being apart of Open Door for the last 3 years, he grew to want the same things, how loving is our God! We got married and I moved to Scottsdale far from my community, but my sweet friends still came to parties at my house even though it was far...and if you know me...I hate far, everything needs to be 5 minutes away and if it's not, it's too far! Fast forward to this house...we weren't supposed to even officially start looking until June 13, because like I said driving to Central Phx after work was TOO FAR!! But after looking at some of our options I couldn't wait, so we moved forward...quickly! We saw a house last Wednesday...put in an offer...because it is a short sell and quite volatile, Mark thought it best to keep looking in case the bank didn't approve our offer, so Sunday we checked out a few more. The last house is smack dab in the middle of "Open Door Estates," from the interior pictures it was not my taste or style AT ALL! That kitchen...will be ripped out ASAP! The bathrooms...hideous. But WE loved the area because it was close to all of you and our hearts have been knitted together. So we submitted an offer, I was ready and willing to give them the listing price and more if that's what it would take! But Andy and Mark didn't think we should appear to be so eager. So we made an offer and they made a counter offer at 1:00 today, by the way they were an hour late...that was torturous! For the first part of the day Mark, Andy and I were giving play by play accounts of what was happening...at one point Andy just responded with, "I'm eating raspberries." We were in that much detail! Mark was great, the sellers realtor worked out of the same office and they bumped into each other in the hall a few minutes before the seller came in to discuss our offer, Mark let him know that we would not be able to afford a certain amount and when the counter offer came in, it was exactly what we could afford! Best part...the sellers realtor ALSO GOES TO OPEN DOOR...how cool! We quickly signed the counter offer not easy to do with 3 different people and 3 different locations and 10 minutes before I had to go into a meeting! Then came time to drop off a check at the Title Company...I never carry my check book with me and today I did...which meant we could get there in time before they closed to give them the earnest money. Now we just need to work out the loan details and Grant Botma is amazing! He will actually be out of town all next week...I hate waiting, but in his place is Mike Zins...holy cow...Mike Zins and I worked together at GCU...literally sat right next to each other in the office!! I couldn't ask for more! We have been taken care of so much in this process and can just hear God saying, I love you so much Meredith and Andy and this is just one small way I can show you! It's so excited!


Even if this isn't THE house...we know for sure we want to be closer to our friends and this just soldified it!!