Moving Update: How Our Summer Condo Stay Is Going

Here is a quick update on how our summer of city and condo-living is going!

 

If you missed it, we moved to St. Louis this summer! I have a post with all the details HERE.

While we’re waiting for our house to be ready and renovated, we’re living in a condo for the summer. Here’s a look at how things are going.

 

An update on our move

We’ve been in St. Louis for 5 1/2 weeks now. We moved mid June, and after one night in a hotel, we moved into a beautiful high rise condo for the next two months.

We have been super lucky because PW’s company paid for us to relocate, so they’ve covered the cost of two months of temporary housing, hired packers and movers on both ends of our move, and have stored our stuff for two months until we move into our house.

PW found our new house through a real estate agent here in St. Louis, but it was off market and wasn’t planning to go on the market for a few more months. But he went inside and immediately knew we should buy it. So we made an offer, and they accepted, but we were subject to their timeline until their new house was built.

So we close on our new house next week on August 3rd, and then our stuff in storage will be delivered and unpacked the week of August 14th.

We’ve been living in Clayton, MO for the summer, and while there were a lot of temporary housing options we could have chosen from, this one is extremely close to PW’s office (his commute is literally under two minutes) so we chose to move here for the summer so we could at least be close to his work. Also it felt like a fun adventure to live in a downtown area for a few months, live in a high rise, and get a taste of living the city life before we move to the suburbs. We’re also super lucky to have amazing amenities in the building…a rooftop pool, a huge gym, a game room, and beautiful views. We’re also within walking distance of a great park and lots of awesome restaurants.

But a small apartment with three boys and two working parents, in a new city, with no friends and no backyard has definitely had its challenges. In the past, I’ve sent them out in the yard or the street to play when they’re getting stir crazy inside and I have to work. But here, there’s no such thing. So some days are a struggle with fighting boys and stressed parents. But I’m counting all my other blessings and trying to remain positive even when some days are tricky.

The biggest blessing through this whole process has been our friends, Sam and Dianna. They’re friends of ours from our years in Huntington Beach, and they moved to St. Louis a year or so after we moved away from Huntington Beach. When we found out we were moving here, I reached out to her and she recommended a bunch of areas to look at for houses. The housing market in St. Louis right now is tough, and inventory for something that doesn’t need a lot of work is really difficult, so when we found our house in a great neighborhood, and it turned out to be in the same church geographical boundaries as our friends, we pounced on it! It was SUCH a blessing.

She immediately took us under her wing and has introduced us to so many friends. She put me on group texts, invited us to a 4th of July party so we had somewhere to go for the holiday, and invited us to get Six Flags passes with them and some friends and go together every week. Having her has been such an amazing gift for us, and has allowed us to make friends and fit in very quickly.

 

How the boys are handling the move

As I mentioned in this blog post, our oldest had a spiritual confirmation about this move, so from day one he knew this would all be ok. As we’ve talked about it with our other boys over the last few months, our middle son said when he found out about the move, he prayed and felt good about this move too. He had the closest friends in Texas of all our boys, so we imagined it would be the most difficult for him out of all the boys, but so far it has been smooth.

We have been attending our new church congregation, even though it’s about a 30 minute drive to get there each Sunday, but it’s allowed the boys to meet people and feel like they’re fitting in. Everyone has been so friendly, and has reached out to invite us to things, and been so welcoming, so the boys have already made a few friends and are feeling happy about that.

It is tough to live 30 minutes away from these friends and, because Philip and I have to work, not have the ability to drive there and hang out with them more regularly, but we’re doing our best to manage it and get over there as often as possible.

 

Overall, we feel very happy here and are anxious to get into our new house in a few weeks, although the next year will be filled with renovations. But it will be nice to be settled and officially in our new house.

But we’ll look back on this summer condo living fondly and although it has had its bumps, it’s been a great summer for our family.

We’ve got lots of exciting renovations happening in the new house over the coming months, and I’ll be sharing those, so stay tuned for more updates soon!

 

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