Grateful for home.

Its been months since I have recorded pictures and memories. It has been easing at me. We had a huge interruption to life in September.
Towards the end of September Rod suggested we go look at a house that I truly would ghostwrited out of my way to drive past daily. I loved it. It was the White House with land from my childhood dreams. I called up our super cute realtor, Heather & asked her if we could look at the White House along with a few other homes with land, but that would require remodel & updating.
I was so nervous all day building up to the time we would meet with heather, I knew once I stepped foot in the White House there would be absolutely no turning back. It was a dream home. It was MY dream home. I could see the children in the pictures of the kitchen. I could see us putting together puzzles in the living room. I saw our future in the pictures. I was scared that if it did not work out after seeing it in person it would be too much to handle. I wanted that house for our children even before walking through the front door.
Well, as I suspected the house was THE house. I cried. There was no poker face for the other realtor, I knew it was home and there was no turning back. We walked through the house and soft Hillsong united songs were playing in each room. Which is totally unfair because I already was feeling the spirit in these walls, so of course the music pulled on my heart too. Rod & I would pause and look at each other with wide eyes and glances of "I know! Right?!" We walked to the river front on the land and just really soaked it all in. We shook hands with the other realtor and pulled away leaving bit of my heart there, and a big prayer in its place. We looked at another property that day complete with a fun zip line, but it wasn't the house we just saw, it didn't make me cry.
2 days later our realtor called & said the house we loved was getting another offer in the next day. We spent the next 24 hours desperately trying to get a pre-approval letter. I cried, I prayed, I begged. We had a wonderful broker who pushed super hard, We had a few others step up and try hard too. We feel so grateful to the men & women who lost sleep with us that night. a wonderful and hard working broker named Arielle pulled it off first and we were able to get our offer in on time. We were incredibly happy, but also knew that we had another battle ahead. We had another offer to compete with. Cute Cooper drew a picture for the sellers. I put my heart on paper and told the sellers all that my heart felt when we walked into their home.  the letter...

Dear Donnelly family, 

We are the Sclater Family. Rod, Jenni, Tre, Britton, Maddox, Presley & our cherry on top, Cooper. We moved to Oregon in June from Las Vegas where Rod served as an anesthesiologist for the US Air force. Life has required us to move for undergraduate education, medical school, residency, then military placement and deployments. We knew very quickly Las Vegas would not be our final landing spot. We dreamt of trees and a kind community to help us raise our babies. Rod was offered a job at a hospital just outside of Portland & after prayer we knew where we needed to go.  We have lived in so many places and have never loved a town as quickly as we have fell for West Linn. We have been greeted by beauty at every turn and friendly faces welcoming us. We feel eternally grateful and incredibly blessed that God has led us here. Now we just need to find what our children call “our forever home.” Your beautiful house feels like forever! 

Thank you for the opportunity to make an offer on your stunning and warm home. It is clear that you have made this house a place for your family to grow and feel loved.  We love the little hints of playful & creative children in the home. From the tiny t-rex on the back patio, to the little marker lines on your dining table. We love that this is a home where you can gather; Gather as family, gather your friends & loved ones. We believe in gathering; In making new friends and introducing those friends to other friends by saying what we love about them. Gathering can build beautiful things. We love the stillness of the land and the call to build little forts in the trees. We love the smell of boxwood bushes that remind us of our wedding in Maryland 16 years ago.  Every window proudly displays God’s grand creations. It is hard not to feel near to Him in such a beautiful setting. We love the openness of the layout and that it is perfectly made for a large family. Speaking of large families, Mom really loves the idea of double washers and dryers and the window into the pantry to make grocery carrying from garage to kitchen a bit easier!  We love that you clearly chose each piece of furniture and art to allow for an airy & peaceful setting. We subscribe to the idea that what we put on our walls is what our children will see is important to us. We choose to have favorite hymns and words of faith on our walls. We want there to be no doubt to our children where our hearts are. We can see where your hearts are and it is deeply inspiring. 

We can picture rain boots (hopefully) lined up in the breezeway. We can picture 5 backpacks on the 5 hooks ready for another school day. We can picture our family councils and scripture study in the living room by the fire. We can picture songs of peace and praise drifting through hallways. We can see family prayers knelt bedside. We can see our family putting together puzzles (we love puzzles) in the dinning room. We can picture bubble baths and kisses goodnight. We picture sitting in the sunroom reading favorite books with little hands eager to turn the page to see what happens next. We picture our family version of food networks “chopped” in the kitchen with flour dusted aprons. We can see Maddox & Cooper building Legos in the playroom. We can see the children pretending and creating in the fields and trees. We see them splashing in the river’s edge. We see our sweet son Britton who has severe & increasing hearing loss taking in all the beauty in touch and smell and sight that the land can offer. We see Tre doing his math homework with Dad’s help at the kitchen counter after a full day of school, lacrosse and youth activities. We picture Mom doing Presley’s hair on the way out the door. We picture life in its sunshine and in its trials. We picture this home as a safe haven and a soft place to land where the spirit can continue to dwell. We picture finally being home forever. 

We would truly be honored to be the next family to create memories in your home. We would love to continue in your legacy by keeping this home full of faith, prayer and praise. We hope that you will consider our offer and we will be practicing some good old Psalm 27:14. We know that He knows each hair on our heads & we have faith that God will guide. We are sincerely praying for you as you begin this exciting next chapter! We will be cheering for you!

With gratitude, The Sclaters 

Rod, Jenni, Tre, Britton, Maddox, Presley & Cooper

Once we had all the documents to our amazing realtor, Heather we hit our knees and prayed. I don't remember eating or sleeping in this process. Hours passed & we heard back. I could barely breathe. & then heather said the sellers accepted OUR offer. Even though we offered the lower number. They chose our family! and again we celebrated one more step closer! The next morning our loan agent called and we both acknowledged that this would be an up hill battle, but we would make it happen! you see, Rod had not started getting paid yet from his new job. billing for Drs takes some time to catch up. It can take months. We were living comfortably off our savings, but had no anticipated buying a house so quickly. But that house was always supposed to be our home! 

I wish I had written this down on here as we went through the process so not to forget all the tender mercies, and blessings, because heaven knows they happened every single day! Even our realtor said she saw the hand of god in this transaction. It did not just bless our family, but the sellers family too! We helped each other, and that is something special. 

My parents stepped up to help us through the process, Rods Dad and aunt advised us & helped us too. Our hearts were overflowing even though anxious! Home insurance brokers helped too! One of T's friend's Dad stepped up and tried to help us, and even though his part wasn't what we went with we were so grateful. One of Britt's & Cooper's friend's Dad was able to pull through for us in the final hour too! So many people stepped up to push hard so we could keep moving forward. home loans of the size we needed  take more than 30 days, but thats all we had. I didn't tell many people about the house or even that we were in the process of buying because every day I was scared we would loose it, that it wouldn't work out. Every day was a new hurdle and new questions, but also new friends and blessings. 

Finally closing day arrived and I was so emotional & excited to meet Arielle and others who had helped us even when it seemed too hard to keep moving forward. We brought gifts, and they brought house warming gifts for us. We cried and signed papers and hugged. it was an incredible day. 

and now...here we are! In our Final home! No more boxes, no more moves. We feel rooted already, like we have always had these 10 acres, this river side, these walls. It is home and we are so happy.