We’ve Got Another Bit of News…We’re Moving!

Well, we’ve got another very exciting bit of news to share…we’re moving! If all goes according to plan, we will be living in the Raleigh, NC area by the end of February.

If you don’t know, my sister and her family live in Raleigh. I finished up my undergrad degree at NC State in Raleigh back in 2013, so I lived in the area for about 2.5 years before moving back to Chicago. I loved my time spent in Raleigh and always thought that it was a place I could see myself moving back to eventually. Raleigh, as a long-term destination, was always an option for me and Mike. He had spent some time there during our year of dating long distance and wasn’t opposed to possibly moving there later in life. We knew we wanted to sort of do our own thing and figure out what our life/careers/family was going to look like before making a long-term decision, but it was always in the back of my mind and on the table for us.

We moved to Northern Virginia for Mike to complete his Master’s program in 2017. Pretty quickly after moving here, we fell in love with the area and realized we could see ourselves staying for awhile, maybe 5 years or so. We weren’t sure on a timeline for expanding our family yet and enjoyed all the things that this area had to offer – wineries, beautiful landscape, proximity to the family and still easy to get back to the Midwest. Plus, we’re about an hour and a half from Mike’s brother and his family, which has been great! We’ve gotten to spend a lot of time with them over the last 2.5 years of living here. We were enjoying spending time with a great group of friends, attending a church we both really liked, and feeling content here.

And then that second line showed up on a pregnancy test back in September and everything changed. Seriously.

It was as if, in a split second, my priorities, mindset, and hopes for our future all shifted into place. Very soon after we found out we were having a baby, serious talks of moving started happening. I just felt this pull to be closer to family. I had the incredible opportunity to spend a lot of time at my sister’s home after both of her boys were born. I saw, firsthand, what the newborn life can be like, as well as how my sister and her husband navigated the transition from a no-child family to having a baby. I got to see the highs and also some of the lows, which I’m so grateful for! More than anything, I got to see the importance of having family nearby, if at all possible.

And so, as we’re quickly approaching that huge transition in our life, we want to do it closer to family and in a place that we can see ourselves staying for a long time. We will be very close to my sister and still within driving distance of my parents and Mike’s brother.

So, that’s the background on the decision to move. Now to the fun stuff!

We started loosely house shopping back in November/December to start getting an idea of the kind of place we could get, what we were looking for, what areas we wanted to be in, etc. Once January rolled around, we knew we wanted to start seriously shopping and looking for our home. Our goal was to be moved into a home by the end of March, allowing a bit of time to get settled and adjusted before my due date! We went on a trip a couple weeks ago, looked at probably 8-10 homes, and put an offer on the second home that we saw. It checks all of the boxes, both for Mike and me, and is less than 15 minutes from my sister’s house. I’m a firm believer in the Lord’s leading and know that this is the home we’re supposed to be in.

So, yes, we have a home to move into! I regularly look at the photos that I took of it and daydream about what it will be like to live there! We are under contract on our current home and should be closing on that right around the closing on our new home.

It’s been very cool to see this whole thing come together so seamlessly. As I mentioned, I’m a firm believer in the Lord’s leading. Watching this all play out, albeit quickly, has been further confirmation that we are going to where we are supposed to be, and that is a great comfort. Moving is a big transition, especially to a new state and a new area. There will be lots of things to figure out and some of the growing pains that come with a move like that, namely connecting with new people and getting into our rhythm of life. But we’re stepping into this next adventure feeling excited and confident in our decision, which is a blessing!

I can’t wait to share more with you, including the process of setting up our new home and finally getting baby boy’s nursery started.

Funny note: it seems to be a trend in our life together that we do really big things all close together. For example, we got married, moved halfway across the country, and Mike started his Master’s program all within about 3 weeks. Now, Mike has graduated, we’re buying a new house and moving to a new state, and having a baby all within months of one another!