The Williams Family: March 2015

We went to Minot last week to have our car worked on. We stayed at a different hotel than we normally do. While we were out exploring I noticed these signs were all over the hotel and restaurants nearby. I knew they had a flood but I had no idea it was this bad.

June 2011 Minot flooded. It was a super wet winter so the spring thaw made the river rise to the brim. Then Canada released extra water to prevent flooding up there which pushed the river over its limit.

When we went to the zoo last year there were signs on about half of the enclosures saying "this animal survived the flood but it's home did not. It will return Spring 2016."Now I know why the animals from the zoo had to be moved.

There are miles and miles and miles of homes and businesses that were under water. Some were under 10 feet of water!

Are you all ready for some crazy, big, new, exciting, awesome, super, fantastic news??

Hold on to your seat because here it comes...

We have finally decided to jump into this crazy thing they call being a "grown up" and buy a house!! We are so excited! Now are you ready for the biggest news yet???

We're buying a house in Hawaii!

No, just kidding.

Sorry.

We're buying a house in wonderful Williston, North Dakota!

We love this place and have no intention of leaving any time soon. After looking at places in Bozeman, Billings, Idaho Falls, Chubbuck, Pocatello, Layton, Bountiful, Sandy, Herriman, St George and Phoenix and not finding anything to immediately fall in love with we took a break from house shopping. I have loved Williston from the beginning. Bret on the other hand has needed some convincing. He has always associated this place with work. When Bret joined the firefighters in town and we moved into our current home, his view slowly began to change. I knew someday he would see what I love about this town and also love it. So after taking less than a week off house shopping he said the words I had wished to hear... "Lets buy a house here" WHAT?! I almost fell off my seat I tried so hard to conceal my excitement... I was beyond excited! I immediately showed him all the houses I had saved on Realtor.com... because, of course, I'd secretly been hunting here for months.

After narrowing down our options, which were slim to begin with, we found two contenders. A home built in the 70's and a townhome built in 2013. They gave us the same amount of square feet, bedrooms and bathrooms at the same price. It took Bret about a tenth of a second to pick the townhome. I was secretly hoping he would! It is around the block from our FAVORITE park. Its about 6 blocks away from the fire house. We're right in town but have an AMAZING view of the country. Its the perfect blend!

We went on a tour and put an offer in that night. It took some back and forth and the longest 4 days of my life but we finally got it. We knew this was the house for us and after spending more and more time and falling deeper in love with it every time I know for certain this is "our" home.

I have tons and tons of pictures to share with you!

We'll start with the front. There are only 6 townhomes so we're not lost in a sea of copied houses. We have a double car garage and a little tree out front.

We have a front door!

You walk right in to an entry way with a direct view of our backyard but you have to wait a minute for those pitures. The ceilings are also really high.

Here is a picture looking the opposite way at the entry way. You can see the stairs going up and also in the lower left corner are the stairs going to the basement.

This is the view from upstairs.

Next we'll be moving on to the living room, kitchen and that fabulous view I keep telling you about!

These pictures are dark but I have no clue how to take a nice picture of something with a bright background.

Beautiful, right?!

This picture shows the stairs going to the basement and our kitchen space.

This kitchen is like a dream come true. I might even start cooking more than one meal a week!

The archway that is to the right of the fridge leads to a half bath and the garage door. The framed opening leads to the basement.

During our first walk through I was opening doors and cupboards and imagine my surprise when I opened a cupboard door to find this:

A SECRET walk-in pantry! I've always wanted one of these!

We absolutely LOVE the island. The details and size are perfect for us.

We even get a garbage drawer!

Next to the kitchen is a dining space. It has a table in it, but its not ours so I didn't take pictures of it. There is a door walking out to a good size deck with stairs leading down to our grass.

The view is something that we can't stop talking about. I can't wait to see it in the Spring when things start turning green. (Speaking of Spring, we got up to 51 degrees yesterday! 51! We are supposed to be 63 today and 70 on Sunday! North Dakota in March.)

Back to the house...

This is the half bath between the kitchen and garage.

This picture is back in the entry way. These are the stairs leading upstairs.

We have lights on the wall by the stairs that remind me of theatre floor lighting. Its kinda cool.

At the top of the stairs there is a little landing. I'm not sure what we'll use it for but its there.

While standing on that little landing you can see the hallway to the master bedroom which sits above the garage.

Then straight into a bathroom.

The first doorway after you get upstairs is for the first bedroom.

Nothing huge but it has a view!

The closets in this house are all big. Which is perfect for all my hoarding...

Back out in the hall we go to what will be the girls bathroom.

Next to that is the laundry room.

I'm so excited to have an entire room for laundry! In a span of about 6 months we will go from having to pack up laundry baskets, walk outside through the mud, snow, rain, wind to do laundry. To now where we wheel our laundry baskets through the kitchen to our laundry closet and finally, in the new house we'll have a whole room devoted to laundry!

Backing out of the laundry room you can head into the second bedroom but before you get there, we have a bit of storage.

Now in the second bedroom, which I think will be our guest room... you could have a whole room to yourself if you come visit us! Just sayin.

Again, with a good size closet.

Now, heading into the master bedroom, the first thing I noticed was the ceiling fan. Finally!

This is looking back out into the hallway (the door on the left) and into the bathroom.

The doors leading into the bathroom are kind of cute. Its like making a grand entry every time we go in.

The master bathroom has double sinks and a shower in a large open area.

The shower even has a seat...in case we spend hours showering and cant stand any longer.

The toilet and closet are around the corner from the shower. The water closet is the longest water closet I've ever seen!

We haven't decided yet who gets the closet.

I know Bret's clothes will eventually take over the entire thing but I'm going to fight for space!

Now lets go back downstairs to the living room/kitchen area where the stairs to the basement are.

Everything that you can see from the top of the stairs is finished. Once you turn the corner at the bottom its all unfinished. I am so unbelievably excited to have an unfinished basement.

Bret has great plans of finishing it right away.

I love the idea of having space the girls can just go wild in.

Especially in the winter.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited to finish it and come up with some awesome plans

but I'm in no hurry.