Houses

We're going to be moving at the end of April or beginning of May.

Nick had to make a business trip to California last week, so we arranged for the kids to stay with various people so I could go with him. My friend called it a babymoon, but we mostly went to see houses and scope out schools.

We went through over 270 houses that claimed to be waterfront homes, and in the end we had a list of 24 beach ones we liked, because location, location, location, right? We loved some of the homes in the Canyon Lake area, but we decided against it in the end, and a lot of homes in the South Laguna area made our list, but it was just too far from Nick's workplace. More than 4 hours a day in traffic is not a good thing for family time. Plus, we would never be able to afford a beach house on our own, and we wanted to make sure to take full advantage of the opportunity here, that being The Company My Husband Works For Will Buy Our House Outright For Us. There are a million contingencies, of course, but that's basically how it is. We won't have a mortgage or rent to pay, and we get to choose the house. So of course we want to make the most of this opportunity.

Now we've just got to narrow it down from twenty-four to one.

The hardest part about narrowing this down is we don't know what it's like to be a family of seven, and that's what we will become in the new house. We've been living in a two-bedroom apartment since before Viv was born, and before that we had a condo for a bit, and before that we were in England, and before that we were childless and travelling the world. We've never had room to really spread out.

So when we walked into a six-bedroom house last week, it felt too big for us. But I'm realizing the potential in these homes. The perfect home for us doesn't exist, a home with 7 or 8 bedrooms can be found, yes, but then the rest of the home is a huge palace with ornate details and way too many things for my kids to hit their heads on. I don't want a palace, I want a cozy home with a lot of bedrooms. And I do realize that I sound a bit like a princess with my demands and such, but I'm sorry. Lots of bedrooms. That is all.

*Nick and I have been considering remodelling one of the houses, moving around a few walls so that we could end up with enough bedrooms. We'll see.