Home Sweet Home

I think it was mid to late May when my Mom called me at work one day to let me know our family friends - Russ and Deb - were selling their house in inner city Calgary. I was surprised by the news but didn't think much of it. My Mom said "didn't you love that location? Maybe you should buy it?" It's true, I did love the location. It was only half a block to a great little French school, one block off the beautiful Confederation Park and substantially closer to work for both Jamie and I. After giving it some thought for a few days, I ran the idea of buying it passed Jamie. He agreed to go look at it and after dinner with Russ and Deb one night, he said "No". His initial impressions didn't blow him away.  In the meantime, I had decided this was a good opportunity for us. Here was a good sized house in a great location for a price we could actually afford. I saw Russ and Deb's house as a way to simplify our lives. The house itself was only 9 years old and didn't require nearly the upgrading and maintenance that our Silver Springs house did. I convinced Jamie and in only a matter of a week or so we hired a real estate agent (the awesome Maira Lizotte), made an offer and bought a house! Suddenly we found ourselves in the position of owning two homes. Not wanting to be in that predicament, Maria got on the job of listing and showing our Silver Springs home.
Jamie and I literally did nothing to that house except clean it. Maria listed it on the mls on Sunday morning - around noon - for $599,900. At 3pm we had our first showing and at 5pm our first offer. The young couple had offered us $585,000 and met all our conditions. Aside from the price, it was a great offer. Jamie and I countered at $599,900 and they took it. We couldn't believe it! Our beautiful home had sold and we were moving.

Our possession date was set for July 29th (and if memory serves, I believe that was also the possession date of our first home in Rocky Ridge . . . weird). We hired a moving company and started the arduous process of packing and selling stuff we didn't need/couldn't fit in our new house. For me, emotions started running a little high. I knew in my head we had made the right decision but in my heart I was quite attached to the Silver Springs house. It was the place I brought home and raised my baby and it was where I had last seen Kazi alive. Despite this, when it came time to close the door and leave it for the new owners, I didn't look back. I rarely regret decisions I make and there's no point on dwelling on these things anyways. My happy memories of Silver Springs will remain in my heart and I'll always look back on it fondly.

So now we've been in our new house for about a month and we're staring to settle in nicely. The neighbours we've met so far are really nice and we're excited about the two little boys that live in the houses behind us. Brandon and I make regular visits to Confederation Park and we love it. We feed the ducks, climb the trees and have recently discovered the fun treasure hunting game of "Geo-tracking". We also visit the school playground on a regular basis and that's lots of fun too. There's always kids playing and Brandon makes friends easily. We really do like being in our new location.
So that's been our summer - hectic, overwhelming, tiring, exciting. It feels like we bought, sold and moved in some sort of record time. I guess that means it was meant to be!