"House Day" - March 3rd - The journey - Part 1

I know it is crazy that I know exactly what day we closed on our house. This is the third house we have owned but the only one I can tell you the exact date. I can tell you the month and the year with the others but not the exact date. Our first house, we knew that was the house for us. We had been searching for months and when the realtor called and said a house had just come on the market she thought we would love I went over to meet her alone. Emily was sick and the weather was yucky, the house was only about 4 miles from the house we were currently renting. I met her and fell in love. I went back home and Ryan went to meet the realtor so he could see. We had an appointment the next day to make an offer. The house had only been on the market 3 days and we only had $500 earnest money for a deposit. The realtor was skeptical as to whether or not our offer would be accepted. It turns out that the lady of the house, knew me from school. I was a Kindergarten teacher at the local elementary school at the time. She had just pulled her 5 kids out of our school to homeschool them. I thought she was crazy - 1) to have 5 kids - 2) to want to HOMESCHOOL them when we had a perfectly wonderful neighborhood school. That was why they were selling the house - she felt she needed more room. It was just a small, three bedroom house. Much to our realtor's surprise, they not only accepted our offer but asked them to give us their phone number so that if we had any questions or needed any measurements, to please call. I took her up on that offer and we spent a lovely afternoon together. I remember it being the first time I was impressed that a person could have that many well-behaved children. They were kind and polite to me, to their mother, to each other ( unbeknownst to me that tinny-tiney little large homeschool family seed possibly taking root). I loved that house. The only thing I didn't love about it was that we were so far away from family. Ryan's job was also very demanding and he didn't see a lot of potential for growth there so after 2 1/2 years in the house we put it on the market. It was on a pretty busy road and because we hadn't owned it all that long and because we were moving to a more expensive town and because we had decided I was going to stay at home full time we decided to list the house for sale by owner. The sign had been in the yard a couple of hours when a couple stopped by. They were friends of friends from church and had been hearing that we were thinking of selling. They bought our house. One day, one showing. We were on to our next adventure...