Wendy and I like watching a BBC television show called Escape to the Country. The premise for the show is that people who have lived in an urban setting for work or other reasons come to a place where they want to sell and buy a home somewhere in the country. BBC then has a series of hosts who accompany the potential buyers to view three, sometimes four, properties.

It’s always fun to watch, but one of the phrases that they use often for couples who are buying their retirement home is, “your forever home”.

Wendy and I today celebrate one year since our house came into our possession. One year since the signatures were laid down, the bank moved the money and we took “possession”. We had a great realtor in Jeff Taylor. His kind, professional approach was very helpful. He guided us along and worked with Philip to accommodate Phil’s schedule.

And Philip and Amanda were wonderful making numerous visits, accommodating us through their busy schedules, to visit properties and view houses. In the end, we bid on three houses and were obviously successful on the third.

We’ve never owned a home before so I suppose this is our first and last house! Certainly, we viewed this as our forever home! The place where we could grow old together. And Philip has continued to work to make it modern and efficient and comfortable. We are blessed in so many ways!

When we set out to buy a house we had a few things which we wanted to try and get. One was, in a cold Edmonton winter, to have a good size garage that led right into the house and only had a small step up to do so. We wanted to have all our amenities on the main floor – bedroom, bathroom, laundry, kitchen….so that if in the future stairs were a problem we wouldn’t be forced to move. We wanted to have some good-sized closets and storage. And we wanted a quiet neighbourhood.

We’ve been blessed to achieve all these things.

We wanted a nice deck out the back – again level with the house – no big steps up or down and that’s here.

We love the vaulted ceiling that moves from the living room over into the kitchen – it gives the house a very open feeling. It’s so nice. We have a big skylight and Phil recently painted it for us so that it really makes a wonderful addition to the room!

We have three lovely bedrooms and three bathrooms so in the days to come we can have visitors who can really feel at home when they are with us.

From the beginning, we’ve really felt that the LORD was leading us through this process to this lovely home, made more lovely by the time and skill of Philip and Amanda who has backed him up and helped in every way. We have flelt that this was the right place at the right time. And we’ve been overwhelmed by a deep sense of gratitude for a home we can call our own.

Following are some pictures that add to the sense of work done, rooms we can enjoy, and help us reflect on what has been accomplished.

We celebrate the goodness of God, the kindness of our family, and one year of home ownership.

We are a blessed couple!