School would be starting soon, and we have to make a decision quickly. Do we follow our gut instinct, what our heart is telling us, and what God is telling us or do we stay in the beautiful blue state of Oregon? After visiting the town of Idaho City, Idaho, and looking at the cabin for rent, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.
After securing the cabin rental, we gave notice to our current landlord and started packing. School was starting and we only had a short time to get moved and get the kids started in their new school. Three 12 hour trips from Oakridge to Idaho City and just like that we moved into that little cabin in the Mountains just outside of town.
Idaho City is a neat little western town and a gateway to the Sawtooth Mountains, a hidden gem. Once the largest city in the Pacific Northwest during the gold rush, there now remains a rugged western town steeped in mining and logging history. We began looking for land around the town we fell in love with, soon after we moved in. Finding the right piece of land in a place we wanted to raise a family is hard and once again, we didn’t find what we are looking for, in the price range we could afford here.
We soon started looking at other areas for land. Northern Idaho has always been a place we were interested in, so we started to look at land there. We made several trips to several different towns while waiting for the girls to finish the school year out. During that time, my husband went through several major surgeries and spent 28 days in the hospital and 6 weeks of home health care. Luckily, we had made an offer on some land not far from the Canadian border. While my husband was in the hospital, we closed the deal on the land. By the time my husband was released from the doctor, the twins were getting out of school for summer break and we were ready to move.
With the influx of folks moving north, rentals were few and far between. We couldn’t even find an affordable place to live in our camper anywhere in the area. The land we purchased was full of trees and we couldn’t even get our camper on the property without cutting down trees and putting a road in. With Billy just having major surgery, there was no way he was able to do all that work. After Billy healed from his surgeries, he would require another surgery. Knowing this, we new that we were going to have to find a home to rent and building our dream cabin in the backwoods of northern Idaho would have to wait. Searching for a home to rent was difficult to say the least. Luckily, after looking on fb and craigslist several times a day, we found an ad for a new home to rent in town, 6 miles from our land. Finally we found a place to rent. Soon after Billy was released from the doctor and the kids got out of school, we started moving north.
Our summer was spent on Billy healing and slowly working on our property. We managed to get our driveway cleared, and a barn started before winter hit and Billy had to go in for two more surgeries.
