I realized it has been a while since I wrote about the house plans.  Maybe it is because it is constantly changing!  It looks like now we will not be building on the new property this summer.  We are going to take the house we are in now, and move it up the road a little, putting in a well, septic, and foundation for it, and then either renting it or selling it.

We were going to have a contractor build a new house for us on the new property, but financially it just wouldn't be a good idea to try to do both projects in the same summer.  So…we will probably rent for a year in the lower valley, so we will have more space and dh will be able to come home every night that he is in Alaska.  This is becoming more of an issue, as he is out of state so much lately, that it is really hard to let him go for the couple of days he has to spend in town.  If he could at least be home every night that he is in-state, it wouldn't be so hard when he had to travel out of state for a week at a time.

Anyway, that's where we stand right now.  But, we have to get the house loan to finish this house through the bank before we can rent, so I need to get a bunch of bids from different companies for all of the things we need to finish.  It is a little overwhelming to me, as I don't really know what to ask them to bid.  Dh says he will be available, but he is just SO busy, I hate to bug him about something else.

I am really praying for God's strength and wisdom.  I am tired mentally.

We have met with the bank, and they were more than happy with our financial outlook.  She told C that most people come in with half the salary and asking for twice as much, so our proposal shouldn't be a problem.  That was nice to hear!  Now hopefully we can find someone to build us the house for not more than we want to spend…that's going to be the hard part.

We had one builder come back to us with a bid for $263K, for just the upstairs finished!  And the well, septic, and foundation are already finished and paid for!  How can 1600sf finished cost that much!?!?  Geesh!  Our realtor warned us that they would come in high, so we will see what the other bids come in as.  Hopefully the first bid was as outrageous as it seems!  We are expecting another bid today, and really like this guy whom we talked to on Monday.

The other option we have discussed recently is going ahead and moving the house down there, and paying my brother to help me be a general contractor, and arrange the finish work ourselves.  One thing C told me was that we would hire someone to move the furniture from the upstairs to the downstairs when it comes time to finish the upstairs.  That was a blessing!

I just have to keep remembering that God is in control, and until last spring, I never thought we would be leaving here and moving closer to town…it is just taking a little longer than we thought it would to do it.  N asked me this morning, “Why is this house so small?”  I told her it was because that's what size we built it.  It sure didn't seem this small 4 years ago, when she was only 7 months old, and the boys were only 2, 5, and 6!