I just noticed that someone read my Inspiration post from yesterday and the one from 10/18/14.  It brought me to read the post again, and to my surprise, it was about the ranch we were in escrow with last year. In the post, I was talking about how afraid I was at posting anything about it because we still had the chance of losing it. Well, we did lose that ranch because another buyer jumped in and offered all cash and a shorter escrow. We were unable to sell our house so we took it off the market after 40 days and decided to celebrate the holidays there one more time. Needless to say, we have since sold our home and are in a great position to buy a ranch.

I remember feeling so sad about falling out of escrow last year, but I also remember the feeling that God had something better for us. Since last year, we’ve looked at other locations and possibilities. We’ve also looked at other ranches in the same area, the Carson Valley, Nevada. We almost bought one that sat on 34 acres. Since losing the first ranch, I knew I had no problems losing another. I learned that I wouldn’t die, and that other options would always be there. In knowing this, it’s made me look at things differently. I no longer felt desperate to buy something for fear of losing it. If we lose it, it wasn’t meant to be ours. Knowing there is a plan, and praying about making decisions actually brings a huge amount of peace.

After seeing the 34 acre ranch, we loved it but it wasn’t a perfect fit. Steve was ready to move on it and I talked him into waiting and watching it. There were little things that just weren’t right about it. Then it sold. I didn’t feel sad knowing it would never be ours. As each property came and went I began to believe more and more that the next one would be better. We went through this with several different places online.

Knowing we had the money available and that we had three years to find a place took a huge amount of stress off of us. We even realized we could buy property and build exactly what we wanted, and started looking at that option.

Finally, one morning our Nevada agent sent us an email about a house that just went on the market that day. As I was going through the listing, I started feeling it. I was immediately in love. Let me tell you, it made no sense because the house had been built in 1983 and it looked like it had not been changed since. I think I remember Steve saying it looked like it was from the movie Napoleon Dynamite. However, there was something inside that whacky house that was calling to my heart. It was clear it had good bones, and ridiculous character. I seriously fell in love right away. It had everything on our list. A barn, a second barn, animal pens, a main house, pasture (but not too much), and a guest house. All of this on ten acres of flat usable land. It was also the type of situation where we could never afford to build this property.

The land is in a very nice area where there are no empty parcels. Because of the mature trees, it wouldn’t look this way even if we could find the land. The water rights alone would cost a fortune and so would the 20-stall horse barn. It turns out the house needing work is a blessing. If it had been perfect, we would never have been able to afford it. So we bought it.

That’s right! We bought a ranch! We’ve made it through all of our inspections and close escrow the first week of September. Could we lose it? Sure, but then we’ll know there is something even better. I’m relaxed about it, but so far we have no reason to believe we will fall out of escrow. I really wanted to wait until we closed escrow to share, but then you wont get to go through the whole adventure with us. Yay!

So there you have it. We bought a ten acre ranch in Gardnerville, NV. We close in 19 days (but who’s counting) and have just under 3 years to get it renovated and ready to start our next adventure in life. I hope you’ll follow us in all the excitement. We have so many plans, and I’ve been bursting at the seams to start sharing them!

Here are a few cell phone pics. I’ll post more of the house and other parts of the property when we have actually signed all the papers and the place is ours. Until then, don’t give up of your dreams or plans, sometimes things take time to happen, or follow a different route to get there.

The Sierras from the property.

Looking out over to the property lines.

So many wonderful trees, and animal pens…