Never Rush Ranch: How we got here...

Aloha All!

I've decided to start a blog to more easily share what we've been up to and the progress of our Never Rush Ranch with our family and friends. Hope you don't get too board.

So, here it goes....

Roger and I have been looking at houses, just for fun, for years. Roger was looking at wrecks and I was looking at palaces. Neither of us was happy with what the other had found.

Last year we started getting serious and talked about what we wanted in a home, what we were willing to compromise on and how much we were willing and able to spend for our dream. Cha-ching! Our list came down to wanting a large lot, anywhere from 1-5 acres, a single family home with at least 2 bedrooms and 1 bath, a basement, a fire place, nice sized kitchen, a well and a shop. Not too much to ask for, is it?

One day in April I was browsing the real estate listings for Idaho and a piece of property came up that caught my eye. The size of the lot and the price were right, but the house was a wreck. On the plus side, it did have a nice old barn that could possibly be converted into a home for us. Showed it to Roger and then contacted our realtor Angela, who I had been bugging for the past 2 or 3 years, to find out some more about the property. Quite spontaneously we decided to fly over to take a look.

A day or two before we were scheduled to fly, the listing agent sold the property. Made us kind of sad, but that didn't stop us from going to see what else was on the market.

We only had two days, so we booked the earliest flight possible to get the most of the time we had available. Well, - as Roger always says "Plans are apt to change" - and they did. We were supposed to arrive in Boise at around 8AM, but we missed our connecting flight on the Big Island and landed about 5 hours late - Note to self, Big Island airport sucks.

There wasn't much left of our first day, but we did to go see the property we were originally interested in. The house was tiny and in really sad shape. Someone had kicked the back door in and someone took several slats of wood from the barn walls....so I guess it was a good thing that we didn't put in an site unseen offer.

Not to be discouraged, we looked at all kinds of homes. There were ones in neighborhoods with 1 acre and ones out in the country with up to 17 acres. Many of them were in such disrepair, it makes you wonder why people let their homes and properties get so run down.

One of the stops was at a little 2 bedroom, 50's farm house that just came on the market. I actually saw the listing before we left home and was hoping we could take a look at it while we were there.

The property was vacant and neglected. Lots of dead trees, plants growing in the windows, spiderwebs in the door ways....but it had good bones and charm. It matched a lot of the things on our wish list. It had 4 acres, a well, a huge shop, a shed, a basement, nice size kitchen, lots of built ins and LOTS of potential. Of all the homes we saw, it was one of our two favorites.

We flew home, not knowing what we should do. Should we wait because something better might pop up? Should we keep looking? Should we go for it? Our heads were still spinning and we didn't really know what we wanted.

On the following Monday our agent called and said that someone put a bid in on the 50's farm house - are we interested or not? We looked at each other and said - let's go for it. A few days later Angela called and said "Are you ready to move? Cause you own a house in Idaho!"

The whole process of buying the home was filled with experiences that we would rather have passed on. Even our agent said it was one of the worst closing she had been a part of and it's not the way things are supposed to happen.

The closing date was in July, so Roger and I took 2 weeks off to fly over for it. Our first stop was Washington, where we stayed with Rogers parents for a couple of days. They live directly on the Puget Sound, way back in the boonies. When Roger moved to Hawaii he had left some of his things with them and they also had some old furniture and house hold items for us to use for starters. We loaded the truck and made our way to our Ranch.

It was an 8 hour drive to get there. Originally the plan was to take turns behind the wheel, but I chickened out. It might have been the heavy load, it might have been the road we were on, I don't know. I just couldn't do it. So poor Roger had to drive the whole way.

It was amazing how the scenery changed as we traveled from Washington, thru Oregon to Idaho. Washington reminded me of Germany, the pines, the roads...When we reach Oregon it was a bit dryer and treeless, which really surprised me. Don't they have a pine tree on their license plates? Where did they go?

Mt. Rainer - View from Roger's Parents place

Somewhere in Oregon

We were pretty busy during our week spent on the ranch (less the time at Rogers parents, driving and the time we had to wait for closing). There were neighbors to meet, tumbleweed to be mowed, purchases to be made and wall paper to be taken down. Although we didn't get all accomplished that I hoped we would while there - as Roger always says "Plans are apt to change" - we enjoyed every minute and were sad when the time came to fly back to Hawaii. Wait a minute, when you think of it, what kind of nuts are sad when they have to go back to Hawaii?

I had my fun taking the wallpaper down

This room is so home-ie - Love the wood

I mowed all that. Roger is so happy with his tractor.

Oh! Wanted to mention that one of the things that amazed us and shows that we have been living in Hawaii for too long, was how long the sun stayed up! The sun went down at around 9:30pm and we were still working in the yard at 10, 10:30PM!