Texas-Arizona-Florida Perkins

Welp. I tried Facebook and Instagram for telling our story, some stuff even went to Youtube! But they just aren't the best format to tell the real stories. So here I am, back on the blog 😏 It would be impossible to fill in the details of the last 12 years to say how we arrived at this point - living in Florida with our youngest 3. It's a fun ride and I invite anyone and everyone to come on it with us! Here's how it started: the Pandemic of 2020. 

But first a side note to explain some additional family members. We had the opportunity to have Caitlyn come to live with us in the spring and summer of 2017. She and her younger sister were living down the street from us in foster care and it wasn't going well. Our oldest (Kassie) was about to go off to college so we said hey, we have an extra room! Come on over! So she did. And for the next few months, she was with us and we were able to facilitate her and her younger sister being reunited with another sister and family in Massachusetts. After Caitlyn left, both Dan and I felt good, patted ourselves on the back for a job well done in listening to the Spirit, and doing what was needed to help these beautiful girls. 

Grandma Kass (2017) & grandkids at Lake Tahoe. Caitlyn is standing on the right with the orange shirt.

Fast forward to a few months and I am in the Gilbert temple. I just felt God tell me that we needed to become foster parents. There is almost a 5-year gap between Sophia and Caroline (now Milo) and we just thought it might be nice if Sophia had a little sister near her age. I came home from the temple and was a little worried about telling Dan. As is his everyday tradition, he went to Circle K for his diet Dr. Pepper. He came out with tears in his eyes and said, "I think Circle K plays hymns on their loudspeaker. I just heard Because I Have Been Given Much in there." So now he had confirmation that we needed to move forward. God😊 So we started the process of becoming foster parents and before you know it, we had 3 more kids!! Adopted in December 2018 and sealed to our family in December of 2019. (Now we were a family of 6 girls and 1 boy smack in the middle!) Again, that part of the story is long and for several other posts but suffice it to say, that's how we gained some extra kids so when you see their pictures, you'll know who they are.

So NOW we can get to the Pandemic of 2020. At that point, we had 6 kids living at home, all of them struggling for one reason or another. It led to scrolling Zillow as my pastime. Filters included at least one acre of property, 4 bedrooms, water on the property, close to a beach, and something we could pay cash for after selling our house in Arizona. At that point, it was a pipe dream, something I thought could maybe help some of the struggles our kids were having. Meaning they could have a lot of space outside to disconnect, spend time in nature, slow down, and have less stress. 

BUT... our community in Gilbert was so good! Our neighbors, our church people, our friends, our schools, our people, and our proximity to family... when looking at the pros and cons list, it was REALLY hard to say which column was winning out. Finally this summer, only 3 of the 7 kids were left at home but 2 of them really struggling, we needed a change. You can read between the lines as to how desperate the situation had to be to leave. We had been praying for a long time to know what to do and now we were getting the answer that it was finally time to move. I guess God knew it would take a lot of time to get us warmed up to the idea. With His direction, we started searching Zillow seriously and getting the house ready to put on the market. This is the house we found in Defuniak Springs, Florida that made us pull the trigger.

On August 1st, we finally had our Gilbert house ready to take pictures. (Side note, why do I always wait until I'm selling a house to fix it? My master bath looked awesome! And for posterity, I am going to include pictures of the Gilbert house but you can skip over them.)

On August 9th, without a sign in the yard, the real estate agents brought 8 different buyers through and the next day we had an offer for over the asking price! Plus they were willing to let us stay until fall break! Our heads were spinning! That was WAY faster than we expected. Immediately we recognized God's hand in this process. We quickly got things in order and booked a house-hunting trip. First stop, the house in Defuniak Springs, FL.