Since I'm not working right now, I have been house hunting by phone and internet. I started off with 10 homes to choose from and quickly narrowed the choices down to 3 on the first day. This morning we woke up to another person in Alexandria who has a house for rent that sounds really cute!

Here's our choices (so far):

1. Lighthouse: 4 stories, gorgeous house on a lake with 2 wrap around porches. The 3rd floor is the Master bedroom/bathroom, the 4th story is a glass room with a beautiful view of the lake. If we went with this it would be perfect to have everyone over for the holidays…for day to day living we would only use part of the house, it's huge, and I'm not sure if I would be lonely by myself starting off while Tim is at work and I'm looking for work. 4 car garage. (5 miles from the church)

2. Unfinished basement: Cute main level house with 2 bedrooms, one bath. Option to own later with the commitment to finish the basement. Good size home for us, perfect for kids after the basement is finished. 1284 sq/ft finished 2504 sq/ft when the basement is finished. 2 car garage. (10 miles from the church)

3. Union Lake: We haven't seen this house in person, but have seen pictures online and from Joyce Boyce who said it looks really cute. 2 story home, 2nd story has the masterbedroom, masterbath and a walk in closet. Main floor is kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms and one bathroom. This house has the option of being furnished. 1872 sq/ft. 4 car garage. (5 miles from the church)

4. Victorian: This is the house I was called about this morning. It's a 1200 sq/ft duplex. The house is 120 year old historic Victorian home, but recently overhauled with brand new everything. New carpet, hardwood floors, French doors, new paint, new appliances. No garage, but plug-in. (3 miles from the church)

I am going to have pictures of another housing option emailed to me this weekend. So we may have 5 housing options to choose from.  Each home is in our pricing range. One is on the steep side (but doable), another is a little more than what we pay here in Texas. The others fall exactly in the middle of those. 

I'm really eager to get back up to Alexandria at the end of this month. I am wanting to finalize housing when we are up there. Pray for us as we settle on a home. All of these are for rent, so we're looking to rent for a year, and then buy a house after that. The house that is on the steep side, we thought might negotiate if we commit to 2 years (which is what the owner wants) and then bring down the rent for us maybe. We'll see. I'm excited to get to go and see some of these houses again, and some for the first time.