We Moved to East Texas!
HERE’S THE STORY
Welcome to the most chaotic couple months of our lives. If you would have told us at the beginning of the year that we would be living in East Texas by this point, I don’t think either of us would have believed you. We’ve lived in the Texas Hill Country since we married in 2018, both in Wimberley and San Marcos. And we loved the area for many reasons. The biggest reason being our friends and community that felt like family. The river being another major perk. We had been renting the land that we farm on and lived in a house that we knew wouldn’t be our forever home— so we knew that our current situation wasn’t permanent and that a big change would be around the corner. In all honesty, we wanted to stay in the area and find land and a house that we could build our farm on. For no less than a year, we were on the land/house search. We had a realtor, checked out several different properties and were constantly scouring Zillow. After about a year of searching, we started to think that maybe the Hill Country wasn’t the best place to start a farm. Between the cost of land and homes, to the lack of rain and fear of future water usage, and even the soil composition and weather itself— we had to face the reality that a different part of Texas may be more suitable for what we want to do.
This was back around April of this year when we started having the conversation and brought up the idea of moving to East Texas for the first time. We talked to our close friends about this thought but we thought this move would realistically happen 1-2 years from that point. We were happy enough with our current house (hello 2019 interest rates), and we had 5 greenhouses built on the rented land we were on so we weren’t in a huge rush, but knew that a change was inevitable in the next couple years.
A PHONE CALL IN LATE APRIL
On a Thursday in late April, I’m designing flowers for a big wedding I have on Friday— I get a call from Grant, thinking he was going to ask me if I wanted him to pickup lunch (answer is always yes). He wasn’t asking me about lunch, rather informing me that our land lease was unexpectedly terminated and we needed to figure out our next move asap. We had enough time to finish out the crops that were currently in the ground, but by July we needed to be moved and planting so that we could have a fall season- wherever that may be.
So back to Zillow I go! Earlier that month was when we first considered East Texas for our future, so of course I had already begun scoping out some properties. Little did I know that we would be touring them that month. We set up a couple showings for Saturday morning, so two days later we found ourselves in East Texas, putting an offer on a house. It was a whirlwind. We also already had tickets to an A&M baseball game with my parents that weekend so our weekend was, Friday wedding in Austin, Saturday morning drive to Tyler, see houses and put an offer in on the way to College Station, baseball game that night, back home Sunday.
We didn’t end up getting the first house we put an offer in on. Someone beat it with the same offer, but all cash. LOL couldn’t compete there. So we went back to the drawing board. Over the next month we scoured Zillow some more and went back and forth a bit to showings. We ended up putting on offer on our current house without me ever seeing it. Grant went by himself that day and I trusted him that it would be a good fit! And we got it, praise God.
At the same time, we were in the process of listing and selling our house in San Marcos— navigating showings with a toddler, dog and a flower business in your house was testing to say the least. Less than two weeks after listing, we got an offer! Another huge blessing.
CLOSING & MOVING
We closed on our new place June 13, so about 50 days from the day we heard about our lease being terminated. It was chaos haha. I didn’t even have time to process what was happening or feel all of the emotions because it was SO much, SO fast. Oh and we found out we were expecting baby #2 in that 50 day window! Just a little extra surprise hahaha (We are SO excited btw, just shocked to find out during such a crazy time.)
Over the course of the next month, we started moving. Every week we would fill up a uHaul at the farm, another transit van full of house things and make the trek to our new place with toddler and pup in tow. It took I think 6 trips to get everything moved out here.. all during the nauseating, fatiguing first trimester I might add (not to complain lol). I keep saying it was chaos, because that’s really the only way I can describe it. It was a mad rush to get everything moved by the time we closed on our old house in mid-July. And our house/garage studio was in NO shape to be moving at the time. By the end, we were shoving stuff in our van- see pic below.
We absolutely could not have done it without the help of our friends and family. Truly life savers! So many hands helped us make it happen. We felt so loved by our friends who helped us move knowing we would be moving away.
By far the hardest part about this move has been leaving our friends and community. I cry every time I think about it. We have such a special group of friends that we became parents alongside and I wish we could live by them forever. The only thing making me feel better is thinking about how much fun our visits will be when we get longer stretches of quality time together. But that has been the hardest thing for us and something that sets in a little more each day as we start over in a new place.
Through it all, it’s clear that the Lord’s hand has been in every bit of this and that alone has given us peace beyond understanding. So here’s to a new home, a new farm, a new baby on the way and starting over!
