House Update

Hey everyone. Hope all of you are doing well. It's been a little over a week since we moved out to Bakersfield and I thought I would send an update on life in California. As all of you probably know, we are staying in an Extended Stay Suite until the end of January. We opted to do this so that it would allow us more time to find a place to live, also to save money since Adam's company is paying for our stay and meals.

We have been looking online for months now, trying to get an idea of the neighborhoods and area of town we want to live in. We have decided to rent for a year and then think about buying after that. It's hard moving to a new state and city that you don't know too much about, other than what you read and hear. You have to experience and see it for yourself in order to get familiar and form an opinion on what you want.

Last week, I spent most of my time learning the roads and trying to see what I could of Bakersfield. If you don't know, Bakersfield is in the valley in southern California. We are about 2 hours from LA and 3 hours from San Diego. Bakersfield is the largest county in the oil industry, so we have oil wells all over town. It is the fastest growing city in the US and has a populations of 325,000. The town is built around these oil fields. The more established parts of town are the East side, which you don't really venture too unless you have to because it's not the safest and the Southwest. We have been told and agree that the west part of town is the place to be. We have been told that either the Southwest or the Northwest is the area to live in.

I was looking online last Tuesday and came across a listing for a house. It had 3 bedrooms/2 Baths, 1600 sq. feet, one story and only 4 years old and in our budget. I emailed the owner to ask additional questions and he responded right away and we set an appointment to walk thru last Saturday. I continued to look in case it didn't work out...we want to keep our options open.

Saturday we went to look at the house and liked it right away. It had everything we need and some little perks. It has a huge kitchen, which is a nice change from the kitchen in our apartment, with a ton of cabinet space, a big pantry and the fridge is included in the rent. It has french doors leading out to the backyard and sliding glass door leading to the backyard from the Master bedroom. The closet in the Master Bath has a his/her sides with a big shelving unit in the middle. The owner seemed very nice and he told us he would be in contact. We heard from him on Sunday morning and he said it was ours. We move in the first weekend in February.

I have enclosed a picture of the front of the house. I'm sorry for the poor quality but it was taken in the car when I drove by one day. I will take more and send them your way as soon as we get over there again. We love and miss all of you and pray for you guys daily.