When we went down to Wichita before Labor Day, that trip was to gain familiarity with the neighborhoods, check out the city in a short amount of time and just BE there before Kyle officially accepted a new position. There weren't really any other times to make it down before MEA break mid-October. So we were house hunting from afar (We did look at 7 houses end of August when we were down). We even faceted through one house and had hoped to find something so we could do the inspection on this trip. But then we all agreed that it'd be better to see and feel a house before getting under contract. So the goal of this trip (expenses paid as a pre-location trip) was to find a house.
We left on a Wednesday. Made a stop in Kansas City to see my Aunt who passed away a couple days later. So thankful for the timing in all that and getting to see and hug her before she left this earth.
This was shortly after I visited her in the hospital at Red Robin in Kansas City. The kids got balloon creatures made.
Mary got a mermaid, Emma got a unicorn, Thomas got a dinosaur, and Isaac got a panther.
We arrived late Wednesday evening at a hotel on the east side of town. Thursday morning we had four houses lined up to view. One being one that we had seen prior. We were really hopeful of that one, but after we saw it (first) it was apparent it was not for us there was just too much wrong with it and too much work that would need to be done that we didn't want to take on. That house and one other house (the one we got) were the only two options in the neighborhood and school zone we wanted. When we walked into the second house (the one we got) it immediately felt like home. It is just like our current home only bigger and it seems like the things we don't necessarily like about our current house was better with this one. The upstairs has four bedrooms and too our surprise there was a FULL ATTIC that is unfinished. We have dreams to finish it and make it a workout space.
Anyway I'll talk more about the house in a second. We then saw two other houses but they were in a different area and different school district and at this point I was sure we had already found our house. After viewing the homes we got lunch at Tanya's Soup Kitchen, it was so good, recommended by so many moms in a facebook group I'm in.
I hadn't yet made an official post on social media and had a vision to get a photo with the Kansas state sign, but with the turn of route we didn't end up driving down through Nebraska so I needed to find another sign to get a photo by. There are all sorts of murals along Douglas so we stopped at one. The kids were being really uncooperative, as you can see and it was NOT good timing for a photo... so this is not what I used, lol.
We went back to the hotel to get Thomas down for a nap. Emma had to take a nap as well because she was super whiney in our attempt to get a photo. So Isaac and Mary got to swim while the other two napped. Emma ended up wetting the pullout couch bed which was a whole mess, the house keeper was super nice, came and cleaned the mattress and set up a fan.
Afternoon went a little better with two littles getting rest. We took advantage of the basketball court they had their as well as the little putting green. I had thought they had a whole mini golf course but it was just this green with a few holes.
We ended up seeing ONE more house that evening. It was in a super cute neighborhood with a stream across the street. It wasn't the school I wanted or the 'town', but near/closer to the area we wanted. The outside was perfect but the inside layout wasn't going to be ideal for our family. It had three bedrooms and was a ranch, so the living space was right outside the bedrooms. We slept on it and decided to visit the Tudor house for a second time the following morning.
Grandma Judy arrived Thursday evening and we went out for dinner at a Thai place. Mary was so excited to see grandma Judy, well both girls were but I loved how Mary just looked at grandma with admiration all through dinner.
Friday morning I got up and went for a run. There was a lake near the hotel. Well a small lake at the hotel which gave it the name 'water front', haha then a little bigger of one just to the west. Both I believe were man made. Most of the lakes in the area are man made, created for run off.
Gorgeous views on a windy run.
Breakfast at the hotel was really good. It was different each morning and had a ton of options. The kids of course had one of everything.
Friday morning we left Mary & Emma with Grandma while we took the boys and did a second showing of the house. Taking a deeper look at the whole thing. Here is a panorama of the attic space. I can just feel the potential!
I love the layout of the upstairs. They moved the laundry up to the closet there off the hallway which I'm not exactly thrilled with but we'll make it work. Will be nice not having to go to the basement. Now we have to leave the house through the basement so I just throw in a load any time I am down there. So that will be nice not having to go to the basement but not sure how I'm going to like the noise of it RIGHT there outside the bedrooms. I also love that the bedrooms are all nice and proportionate. The master has a bathroom and an extra little office room which will be our workout room until we finish the attic. The girls have a room off their bedroom and then there is also a hallway bathroom. Only one tub in the girls room but we want to add a freestanding tub to the master bathroom. The boys bathroom in the hallway has a shower only. Total the house has 5 bathroom so I'm going to have lots more toilets to clean... well teach the kids to clean cuz they need to help out as they get older.
These next three photos are taken from the listing:
Front of the house
Entry way as you walk in the front door.
Here you can see the similarities to our current house, you walk in and there's the fireplace room then a back room. This one also has a sun room there to the left. The layout is very similar to our current house just a bigger kitchen, larger hallways, additional room with the sun room and overall roughly twice the amount of space :-o We plan to do some updating throughout - particularly to the light fixtures and get rid of the curtains if they haven't when they move out.
This is the street we will live on, just on the other side of those arches, haha.
We spent some time there then it was time for lunch. We went back to the hotel to pick up grandma and the girls then went to an area called Bradley Fair. There was a wait for the restaurant so we walked around and checked out the fountain and little man made lake. Reminded us of Centennial lakes in Edina. It was a nice sunny day.
After lunch we went back to the hotel and the kids swam again. Then we put Thomas down for a nap and Grandma Judy stayed with all the kids in the hotel room while Kyle and I drove ten minutes over to meet our realtor to sign the papers for the offer.
Once we got back it was time for dinner. We wanted to go downtown and check out the free Trolley. Thomas is in love with Daniel Tiger and was so excited about the trolley. It took a while to get on it, we drove to a stop but the trolleys were running late so we stood there for a good half hour or so.
Then we rode it into town (so we drove west of downtown, hopped on the trolley rode it east into town got off for dinner then rode it back). Here's Kyle in front of his new office building.
We had dinner then headed back home. The next morning we had breakfast and said goodbye to Grandma Judy who headed back home.
I can't remember what we did between breakfast and lunch on Saturday, but we had lunch at a great little Mexican restaurant, again a recommendation from a group I'm in. They gave amazing recommendations. This place was called: Molino's And SOMEONE paid our bill! We went to buy lunch and she said it was covered. We couldn't believe it!
Then we checked out the Exploration Place. This is their science museum -ish... well it's where we can utilize our current MN science museum membership to get in free. They had some special halloween activities going on. It was fun. Very kid friendly and hands on, I'd say it's more of a children's museum then science museum. Thomas was sad to not see dinosaur bones but he had fun with everything else. I think the museum called treasure something is the one with the Dino bones. We'll check that out eventually.
LOOK! Cargill :-D
On the way back to the hotel we found another sign and attempted a group photo again:
Back to the hotel for more swimming.
Our realtor stopped by to pick up our earnest check. OH we heard back about our offer with a counter then we countered and they accepted. I think that all went down Friday evening... or Saturday morning. My Aunt also passed away on Friday evening. Sunday we got up and loaded our things, ate breakfast and hit the road. We stopped off in Kansas City to see my cousin, they were all busy preparing for the funeral and gathering photos for the slideshow. But good to see them all and God works in mysterious ways, if it wasn't for my Aunt being so sick then my other two cousins wouldn't have been in town and I probably wouldn't have stopped to see Aunt DeeDee on Wednesday. I was hoping with the move down there I'd get to see her more and she would get to see the kids but now that isn't going to happen. Makes you think about how quickly life goes and how short time really is. Makes me more appreciative and grateful for the time I do have with those I love. We made it back late on Sunday and are feeling grateful to now have a home to move into once we get moved next month. Well that's the plan, we need to close on the house first :-D
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