House Hunting

This weekend we drove 5 hours to Jacksonville, Florida to scope the area out, learn a little more about the neighborhoods we may live in, and look at some houses.

We arrived Friday evening to our dog friendly hotel (who knew?!) and Teddy immediately went for the toilet to get a drink of water. While this is not uncommon for many dogs, Teddy has never done this and we were so shocked when he drank out of the toilet for almost a whole minute! He must have been parched :)





(what a spoiled, spoiled dog!)

Anyways, after adjusting to the hotel, we all got a good night's sleep and woke up the next morning for a 9 hour day of house hunting with two wonderful Realtors in the Jacksonville area.
We had a packed day of looking at houses and trying to understand what neighborhood of Jacksonville we'd like to live in.

We looked at about 25-30 houses total between Saturday and Sunday and by the end of Saturday felt that we really would like to try to live in an area called "Fleming Island". More specifically, we would love to live in a development in Fleming Island called "Eagle Harbor".

(this is a picture of the water access at one of the houses we liked a lot - it looked out on "Doctor's Lake")

Some of the things we enjoyed about Fleming Island were: convenience to the base, the amenities of the development (15 clay tennis courts, a golf course, 3 swimming pools, a good military presence, self sustaining community surrounding the development, etc), and the affordability of the area if we decide to buy or rent.

While the historic areas of Jacksonville were beautiful, we simply could not afford to rent or buy in such a nice area.

Sunday we enjoyed touring around base, touring downtown Jacksonville, and revisiting the Fleming Island area. We feel like we covered it all! Surprisingly, Jacksonville does not seem as big as we once thought it was.

(here Teddy is after rolling the car window down himself trying to get to the Dunkin Donuts drive through people- you may think we're fibbing that Teddy is actually capable of rolling the car windows down, but he has now done this 10 or so times to the point where we have had to put the child locks on the windows)

Anyways, I digress. It would take too long to write, and many of you already know the process that led us to make an offer on a house, but we have officially made an offer on a house in Eagle Harbor, however, it is likely to not be accepted, as we would be getting a great deal if they automatically accepted this offer. If it does not work out, we will be back at the drawing board, looking into temporary or more permanent rentals and other possibilities. God has given us such a peace about the decision- although we are moving imminently and really have no idea what we will do for housing yet, the Lord has truly overwhelmed us with a sense of peace about the situation- he is our provider and he WILL provide even if it is not in our timing or up to our standards- even if it seems like it's at the very last minute! (Genesis 22- Abraham and Isaac)

In the meantime, I have applied to a handful of jobs and hope to begin getting some leads for interviews prior to the holidays.

We have decided on an official "detach" date from Pensacola as the 15th of December, however, we do not need to leave this late from Pensacola or we can arrive later than this date to Jacksonville. We will decide in the near future when to have our household goods packed up.

Anyways, I could go on but this is a taste of what is going on for both of us right now! We appreciate your prayers and your love and support.

In Him,

Whitney (and Josh)