A little more than a week before Ricky and I were to leave Texas for our summer vacation trip, he got an email from the corporate office of his employer back in Indiana. They wanted to know if Ricky would consider moving our return date up a year to come back asap. While we knew our gig in Texas was always meant to be a temporary one - we kind of had our mind set on staying until Ethan finished 1st grade and Aiden completed Kinder. So when this email came up, and Ricky was told they had a role they wanted him to fill, we set things into high gear and moved things forward full speed ahead.

In a matter of DAYS, we had our suitcases packed for our extended vacation (6 weeks for me and the boys, 1 week for Ricky), half our house boxed up, the house professionally staged, and a For Sale sign in our yard. It was completely chaotic!

Later that week our entire family boarded a plane to Kentucky. The first stop was a few days with Ricky's family in Southern Indiana. Then we drove to Michigan for a week with my mom's side of the family at Poppy's place (our family's vacation home). Next, Ricky flew out of Grand Rapids back to Texas and the boys and I drove to Chicago with my mom to my aunt's house for another few days. Finally, we headed to my parent's house in Kentucky where I'll be until the end of July.

We had high hopes that the house would sell while we were traveling and by the time Ricky returned to Texas we would be signing papers and preparing for a move back to Kentucky. Unfortunately, it's been 3 weeks and while we have had almost a dozen showings, we've had no offers. 

On the other end of things, we also had pretty much less than 48 hours to narrow down a place to live once we do move back so we could make a game plan for enrolling the boys in school before the fall. We found a great neighborhood in an excellent school district. Only problem? Everyone else loves it there too...which means not a whole lot of inventory for us to choose from. Once people get in the area, they stay for the long haul. We looked at a couple houses that just didn't meet our most important criteria and started to feel a bit discouraged (and a bit panicked). In our last few hours in town, we happened to stumble upon an opportunity to build a house in a not yet developed section of our top choice neighborhood. 

But...here's the catch - this new development is not going to be ready to start building until November. And the building process will take 6 months, give or take, depending on the weather conditions throughout the winter.

That meant that in order for the boys to go ahead and start school in the same school district as the one where we are building, we would need to find something to rent. We started looking for rentals in the area and quickly learned we would have to pay considerably more per month than a mortgage (which did not make much sense to us when we are trying to save money to build). 

I tossed around the idea of living with my parents for a year to save money. The boys could go to the grade school I went to growing up and we'd be able to add the money we'd save to our down payment. Although I have to admit, when I called to propose the idea to my parents, I thought they'd need some convincing. It's one thing to have me and 3 boys invade your house for 4 weeks during the summer. It's another to set down temporary roots for a year.

Aaaaannnddd, yet here I am.

As it stands, the plan is for me and the boys to live with my parents this year while we move forward with  building. Ricky will live with his parents in Indiana so he's closer to his work and will drive up to be with us on the weekends. Keep in mind one very important piece to this oh so complicated puzzle...we still need to sell our house in Texas. So, the exact timing of when Ricky will officially join us in the midwest is yet to be determined.

I have to think that there is a purpose to God's timing. But I'm not going to lie, it's going to be an extremely trying year. Living back "at home" for the first time in 14 years, away from my spouse, with all 3 of my kiddos all while going through the process of building a house an hour and a half away? Talk about piling it on.

With that said, we have a pretty good track record for handling a lot of stress gracefully, so I'm trying to stay positive and praying that all will work out how it's supposed to in the end.

At the very least, it should provide for some great blogging material!