Lots of things can happen in a year!

So, in July of last year we were first discussing paying for the new house. We had the last two rooms to finish on the Phoenix house before we could sell, preparing us financially to take on the new house project.

In August, we accepted a temporary assignment as superintendent of the Southeast Arizona group (Chiricahua, Coronado, Fort Bowie). We had a great time there, living at Chiricahua and learning the parks and the southeast Arizona landscape. We were there through January, including the shooting of the local Congresswoman, Gabriel Giffords in Tucson. We watched this summer in horror as both parks burned in Arizona's biggest ever fire season. While there, we spent every other weekend exploring the area and every other weekend in Phoenix working on the house. Brad's sister, Rhonda, came for a quick visit in December and stayed a couple of nights in that construction site. She seemed to survive OK.

In April, we were notified that we had been successful in seeking the superintendent position at Petrified Forest. In anticipation of that selection, Brad had been spending most weekends and most evenings in February and March working on the house in Phoenix and that effort only accelerated when it became official. Since May, when the job started, we have been spending most weekends continuing to get painting and trim work complete. In the meantime, housing values have fallen such that it's likely that most of our effort and investment over the last two years would be for naught if we put the house up for sale now as we had planned.

In the meantime, our builder had also, fortunately, been busy with other projects and there has been minimal activity on our project.

As things stand today, we expect to finish the house for rental, including moving our stuff out of it, by the end of this month. With any luck, we'll get a renter in it this fall and await a turn in the housing market. In a year or 18 months, we'll have to decide whether to sell and begin the new house construction project. We still have options, even in this market, and I don't believe our dream needs to be compromised. However, as long as conditions aren't a lot worse in 18 months, we'll be better off having that time to build our reserves and speculating that our chances for market recovery are decent.

So, we've been busy with life this year even though we have not been busy on this project. We're pretty tired of working on the place in Phoenix (working there almost every weekend since February, whether living there or not) and will feel liberated when that project is complete enough to rent. A break from construction over the next 12 - 18 months feels very welcome right now.