Spontaneous Life Changing Decision

     The year was 2004.  Tax season was upon us.  Being new to the owner operating side of trucking we were sharing the delightful task of adding up all the fuel receipts, tolls, scales, repairs, and other numerous receipts late one evening after our 4 children were asleep.  Actually it wasn't delightful at all.  It was tedious and tiresome.  He was on a dedicated run from Ionia to Detroit and was home most weekends.  Every now and then he would do an extra run somewhere else.  Each receipt would open up a memory of what truck stop he was at or what load he was under when a breakdown occured. We needed a break.

    We enjoyed looking up Realtor.com on the computer just to see what is out there.  We lived in the city of Allegan but we wanted to buy some acres with a house.  At that time housing prices were soaring.  People from Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo were moving closer and closer to Allegan County causing the value of homes to increase.  Under the search engine we clicked on an area 75 Miles from Ionia since we were doing that deadhead anyway.  We put it a minimum of 3 bedrooms, 1 bath and what our top dollar was.  We started scrolling through some houses.  Then we seen a farm house with 5 acres.  We looked at the price and thought there must of been a typo and that it was too low for 5 acres let alone a house.  We looked at the location.  Sears.  Sears?  Where was that at?  We never heard of it.  We quickly grabbed a Michigan map and looked it up in the index.  Sure enough there is a town of Sears.  It would be an easy drive to head to Ionia from there.  We couldn't do anything more about it since it was night but we agreed to call on it the next morning.

     The morning came and I drove our two oldest off to first grade and kindergarten at a private school in a neighboring town.  When I came back I woke up Brian so he could call on the house.  The price is what was listed.  The realtor said we were free to check out the house anytime and it was unlocked.  We decided to keep the kids home from school the following day and drive up to look at it.

     The drive was long but we enjoyed long drives.   We entered Osceola County.  We kept a close eye on the addresses.  We were getting closer and closer.  Far off in the distance we could see a white dot on top of the hill.  I jested to Brian, "Wouldn't it be neat if that was our house up there?"
   
     "We are still a ways away.  That can't be it"  he answered back.

     We came closer and closer to that white house off in the distance.  The addresses were getting closer to the one we were looking for.  To our amazment the house on top of the hill was the same house we were looking for.

     It was plain and needed some TLC.  There was a drive available for Brian's truck too.  There were traces of snow still left on the ground where down in Allegan it was already melted.  We walked around the boarder of the property and looked at the inside of the place.  It certainly had potiental and we all were quite excited about it.  We drove into the next town of Evart to see what the town was like.  It was small and cute.  Modest homes and nice looking schools.  Were we ready to call his place home? 

     We called the realtor, put in our bid and on our oldest son's 7th birthday we signed papers on the house.  We had to wait another month so the kids could finish up their school back in Allegan County.  It was scary and exciting at the same time.  It almost didn't seem real.  We are taking on an adventure to head up north, away from family and friends, to a place where we really didn't know a single soul and to call this new place our home.

     A year later the auto industry was on life support.  Our dedicated run was no more as factories closed down and they didn't need our assistance.  We leased our truck on to a different company and now run coast to coast and boarder to boarder.   It will be 8 years at the end of April since we took this bold decision in moving our family.   Sometimes we wonder in this slow economy if this was the best thing to do.  Jobs are not easy to come by up here.  We wonder what the future will hold for our children.  But for right now we call this place home.  And it all just happened from taking a break while doing our taxes.