Big Changes for a Huge Little Reason

A lot has been going on with our living situation lately, and God is blessing us BEYOND belief. Essentially, in the last 2 weeks, we've moved from home owners to land owners...and are excited to build a new home in the coming months.

Our home, which we have loved for the past eight years, and where all of our children have been born (Well, not literally mind you - I'm a hospital girl. But they all came home here!), has now been passed along to another great family. We struggled and struggled with selling for a long time, because we LOVE our home, and LOVE our neighbors even more. (We are leaving some of our greatest friends in this neighborhood.) But we placed our trust in God, and thankfully we found a new place to live only a few miles up the road!

Here's the story in a big nut shell:

We had been wrestling with decisions surrounding our living arrangements almost since the time we found out about Dillon a year and a half ago. In the end, we decided it was tough, but wisest to sell - because of our sweet little boy needing single floor living arrangements for his wheelchair, and full accessibility everywhere in our house in general. Our current home is a three-story, and would be a very difficult house to maneuver a wheelchair around. We looked at ranches around town, and looked at bumping out a wall in our home to put a main level bedroom and bathroom. However, neither Jason or I were completely comfortable with the situation, as we want Dillon to be able to be where the rest of the family is without unnecessary struggle.

Something one of our Children's docs said to us a while back has also stuck with us. She said, "...everything outside of your home will be more of a challenge for Dillon, so try to make everything inside your home comfortable and easy for him."

We want Dillon to thrive, and realized with that statement - we do have some ability to control where he is able to thrive, at least on some small scale.

After wrestling with remodeling and looking at homes for many, many months - only realizing we would still need to do a lot of construction to make everything handicap-accessible, we decided to start from scratch and build. About 2 and a half months ago, Jason found a great piece of land nearby (1 acre) and we ended up closing on that land today. Yahoo!

As for building, God has blessed us with a great friendship with the owners of Stone Cottage Homes. They attend our church and build amazing homes in the area! They will be helping us build our next home - which will be completely handicap-accessible for Dillon, as well as a true joy to all of us. We are so grateful and can't wait to live in one of their homes!

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Another God-thing in this whole move situation (and a huge part of the story that's even made it possible to move as we have) - we sold our house almost immediately...without even listing it. :)

About the same time he found the property (about 2 months ago), Jason mentioned one night on a bike ride that we were looking at moving, and would probably be putting the house on the market within a week or so. A good friend of his mentioned interest in buying it. We didn't think much of it, until it all started happening...quickly! It ended up that we were able to sell our house to some very good friends, and have only been blessed even more through the whole process. They are even helping us with a living arrangement until our new house is finished. Amazing!

So as we've said, a lot has been going on with our living situation, and we are so thankful. It makes me want to cry, honestly, when I think of all that God has done for us. Dillon will have a perfect home for his needs. And while we clearly know this home will be very special for our little boy, Dillon, we are also excited for the home it will be for all of our little ones. They are so excited too...

 Beetles on the property.

Our amazing view.

 Wildflowers.

 Snakes. Heaven for little (and big) boys.

Denied.

A lot of people have been asking about Dillon's wheelchair, so here's a brief update. Last week we found out that the insurance company denied our claim for Dillon's wheelchair. Frustrating!! I guess its not terribly uncommon, and most people that put in for something large like a powered wheelchair for a young child get denied the first time (or second, or third). It's one of those things you just have to be patient about, and very persistent with. We don't plan on giving up! Its just extremely aggravating that we waited about eight weeks for the insurance company to tell us no. We now have to appeal the insurance claim denial and submit everything again. So we took a trip up to Children's Hospital again last week to take more pictures of our little guy driving a chair around, so we can send them in with the appeal paperwork. He's so amazing. :)  We're in awe of what he can do! What a joy to watch him in that chair, at just one year old! It's his version of learning to walk, and he's so ready to keep up with his big brothers and sister. We really wanted to have the chair this summer so he could begin practicing driving outside before it gets freezing and snowy around here, but it looks as though we'll have to wait a bit longer. So please pray for us, pray for patience and for timing. We know that God's going to have his chair approved at the perfect time, its just hard to wait! And pray for whoever that person is that's about to get our appeal...that they will grant us favor and help us get our sweet boy a chair.