For those not in the know, Amanda and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary this past Thursday the 18th.

We used up two days to celebrate, wihch is something we try to do with anything that’s a big deal in our lives in order to stretch it out and not make it feel as fleeting.  On Thursday, we had our anniversary proper, with no gifts (not in the budget for this year), but a wonderful meal of stale bread soup, which combines all sorts of things we both like, such as beef stock, northern beans, thick bread, diced ham, garlic, and spinach.  It’s really very good.

Last night, we used up a gift card my parents had sent us for Mothers’ Day and snagged some Applebee’s to go.  Good stuff – I’ll take any excuse I can to have some ribs, she got this seasonal-item steak sandwich that looked really good, and we shared an appetizer of tavern chips, which are little, thinkly sliced pieces of potato that are then fried, covered entirely with bacon pieces, jack, and cheddar cheeses, and packed with a little dipping tray of ranch dressing that’s had a whole bunch of awesome spices added to it.

All told, we are just extremely pleased to look at how far we have come and see the changes and the challenges we have faced together over the past five (and really, more like nine!) years.  It hasn’t been an easy path the whole time, and there have been times where we have disagreed rather strongly on one thing or another.  Sometimes, we wonder how we managed through some of the more upsetting things that have happened.

But at the end of each day, I love my wife and I love her for everything that she is, and I would never trade what we have for anything in the world.

Love you, Mrs.!

Amanda just received a phone call from our house builder, and we are meeting the construction manager next week to discuss the home site and go through any questions we might have.

This means they will be doing things like pouring concrete and other cool things like that very, very soon.

Weather permitting, we could be in our home in four months or so.

“Stoked” does not even begin to explain how I feel about this right now.

The title is fitting as we have recently (and by recently, I mean last Saturday) signed a contract and placed a deposit to build us a new house. This would be an old topic if it were not for the fact that Amanda and I look at each other approximately a dozen times per day right now and casually mention to each other that we now, for all intents and purposes, own a home.

It is a very strange thing to think that soon, we will get to move your things to a place where they (hopefully) will be permanently located for a good decade or more, espeically considering the impermanence our recent string of residences have provided to us.

This is, of course, not an immediate thing, as we have been quoted at a six month minimum construction period, while they await the finalization of the financing, get the builder in gear and the subcontractors out to site, and wait for the utility companies to provide all the hook-ups necessary to a properly coded residence. It will be a difficult few months while we wait for this process to be completed.

But in the end, we will find ourselves fortunate to finally have a stable housing payment, a place to live that doesn’t share a wall with another family, twice the space we currently have for our young family, a back yard, and various other features associated with home ownership. We are stunned by the sheer enormity of our purchase and the fact that we will be laboring another thirty years before we have paid back the sum we are to borrow from a reputable financial establishment very soon.

I plan on going out as soon as is possible to snag an inexpensive digital camera with which to document this entire process, because I surely think that it is unthinkable that I would not have copious visual documentation of this process that I will be able to look at in twenty years and think, “this is a bunch of pictures of those guys building our home.” It is a very satisfying proposition, and I intend not to let it slip by without seizing full advantage of it.

All that is left before being assured of the completion of this project is to begin to save more money in our way to needing to buy home improvements and other tokens of necessity, as well as to complete the paperwork and disclosures necesaary to close on a loan of this magnitude. I can say that I have been assured by more than one party that I have the necessary financial clout and resources to “seal the deal,” as it were.

There are, of course, many more words to say about this process, and many thoughts crossing my mind, but it will take some time for me to put them down in concrete thoughts and words, due to the purely colossal nature of what has just happened in rather rapid succession.

To be short, we decided that it needed to be done, and went out and did it.

Six months before I can turn to my wife and children and say “Let’s go home.”

…

I can’t wait.