Once we knew that Alesia would be leaving on April 8th to make the move across country to Ontario, my husband wanted to find a way to get back here for a visit before she left. We have no idea how long she will be gone, and when your child is 20 years of age, you know that the next phase of life is just around the corner and where they will finally settle down, no one can be sure.

Graydon (dh) did not want to miss the opportunity to spend at least a couple of days together as a family before she made that move, and mostly, to see her one last time before her big move! So we set to work making plans for a visit. The last time we had been together was Chrsitmas, for 4 short days. Now spring would soon be here. When Graydon returned to Saskatchewan after a visit,  Joshua would move back with him.

Meanwhile a couple of weeks ago, for the first time in many many years, we found out that my husband would be receiving a tax return. With both of us being self employed, each year we end up paying taxes, not the other way around. We tossed around ideas of which bills to pay down with the funds.

Then, just this past Wednesday we realized maybe we should look at these funds different? What if we used the return to move the horses, and ourselves, to Saskatchewan? Graydon was already paying rent out there, and we were paying a mortgage here, so maybe we were thinking about this all wrong? All this time we could NOT be together because we simply could not afford to get our family, our horses, and our belongings, out there! We needed the funds from the sale of the house to make that move! But now? Now we could possibly do it. It would be tough financially, but with the tax return, we’d have a good jump start at least!

That was just last Wednesday. It seemed like a rather ‘pie in the sky’ idea though because the entire time my husband has been out there, he has been unable to find even ONE place for rent that would suit our needs. When you have an entire hobby farm to move (minus the hens… I draw the line at moving chickens. I did get convinced to move two ducks though…) it’s really not all that easy to find a suitable home to rent! When there’s a family of 6 or 7 humans, 5 horses, 4 dogs, 3 cats, 2 ducks, and 4 budgies to take along with you? Well… there aren’t too many feasible options when it comes to renting. It always seemed IMPOSSIBLE!!

Then, the very next evening after we decided to give this a serious try, my husband came across an ad for a rent or rent-to-own house, shop, and quonset available on 15 acres. He immediately texted me and told me about it. He was at work, so he couldn’t call, but I immediately did! We weren’t going to let that one get away. We had to find out more!

There was no answer, so I left a message and hoped they’d call back soon.

The next morning they had not called back yet, so I called again first thing. This time I got an immediate answer and I spent about 30 minutes asking questions about renting this property. At that point we were just interested in renting. The owner of the property shared some info on how things would work if we decided that after renting for some time we might like to stay, and buy it. When I hung up, my husband and I talked about the house, the property, all it had to offer and how we felt about it all.

Then we both pondered it.

Then we both realized the part we never liked about the idea of renting was that we simply did not want to be moving, to a rental home, just to move yet again after. We wanted find HOME! Our children had been through enough waiting, so had we! We also hated the idea of throwing money away on rent! We’ve always much preferred home ownership.

This house we found offered us everything that another house we were interested in offered us. There was a four bedroom home. A very large heated shop for Graydon and Joshua, and a quonset. The land size only differed by 2 acres, yet the price differed by over 50 grand. This rent-to-own home was over 50 grand less then the home we originally had our eye on!

We REALLY needed to think about this, AND, we REALLY needed to learn more about this property, AND FAST! Hobby farms to rent just don’t happen all that often. When you find one, you’ve got to jump on it!

I called the property owner back and told him that we might be interested in his hobby farm to possibly buy in the future after all. Could he tell me more about the home, and the rent-to-own situation?

He explained that it wasn’t really a true rent to own. He didn’t want to hold a mortgage. He simply wanted to rent the house to someone who was more invested into the property than to simply rent it short term. He’d prefer to rent it to someone who might like to buy it in the future, so that he’d know it would be properly cared for. He explained further that there would be no down payment other then a regular deposit of one months rent, but that if we decided to lease for two years, every penny we paid in rent would come off the agreed upon price of the property, and that the price of the property would remain the same in two years if we decided to buy it after the lease was up. It would all be put in a proper contract with the agreed upon price.

Oh.My.Goodness! It all sounded TOO good to be true! I just could not BELIEVE that we would find a property that was EVERYTHING we had been looking for, and now it was being offered to us for one months rent as the deposit?!?! AND that the rent was just 100.00 more per month then my husband was already paying for just a ROOM, in someone house!?!

My husband and the property owner agreed to meet on Saturday afternoon to check out the house. This was Friday. I honestly thought I was going to go CRAZY while waiting to hear! Twenty four hours never seemed so long!

On Saturday morning I woke to the phone ringing. I didn’t get to the phone in time, so I checked the number and it looked familiar. It was the property owner. During his drive to meet my husband (an 8 hour drive) he remembered that there were actually some photos online that I could look up so that I could see the house while I was waiting. I was ecstatic! I quickly looked up the photos, and found the house. As soon as I saw the very first photo, I knew that this was the one. It just HAD to be.

The house had a DORMER window.

I have ALWAYS loved dormer windows. Always. There’s more to that story, but that’s for another time.

What I also loved, was the house had some CHARACTER. If you know me, you know I am a VERY visual person. All the other houses that had been contenders for us in the whole time we had been searching in Saskatchewan had been plain bungalows. I don’t have anything ‘against’ plain bungalows, but, I love antiques. I’ve always loved antiques. I’m sure that antiques can look just fine in plain bungalows, but I love antiques because they have character and I wanted a house that has some character too! I knew that this next home we hoped would be our last home. I didn’t want to whine about plain bungalows during our search, it seemed like such a silly thing compared to our family being apart! Yet, it was always a teeny bit there every time we’d find a property that would fit our criteria.

It’d just be this little *sigh* in the very back part of my mind… this little *wish* that the house we were meant to live in, our family homestead, could have just a little character to it.

So when I saw that dormer window, and that the house was a 2 story home, not a plain bungalow, I just about LEAPED for joy! I had so much excited energy that the girls and I packed up pretty much the entire master bedroom while waiting for Graydon to text us the results in seeing the house.

And then he finally did. He texted and said, “We now have a home.”

 *this is part 2, you can find part 1 here: http://homesteademporium.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/yes-we-are-finally-going-to-be-together-as-a-family-once-again/