Quarantine Lake House!!

After ten years of marriage, Kara and I have learned that we don't idle well.  We work best when we are striving for something - when we have a project, or some sort of common goal that we are working towards. In the past, things like earning a new degree, having a newborn (or 2 or 3), moving to Zionsville, traveling, and finishing our basement have scratched that itch. 

When COVID-19 hit, both of us were on the verge of going crazy.  E-learning, Kara working in a COVID ICU, multiple cancelled trips, putting Dexter to sleep, and NO interaction with anyone was about enough to do us in.  As we were working our way through this incredibly difficult quarantine season, one thing kept creeping up in our minds over and over and over.  Man do we miss the Fourth of July.  

For some context, our Fourth of July tradition for the past several years has been to meet The Bednarko's in Michigan and spend a long weekend on the water, renting a boat and jumping waves in Lake Michigan.  This was one of the very few things that we actually got to do as planned in 2020, and we just couldn't stop talking about how happy we were on the water, and how we both had always dreamed about having a place on the lake that we could take our family and friends to to create memories.  

So, as with many of our crazy adventures, one night Kara and I poured a glass from a $10 bottle of red wine and started poking around online looking at lake properties.  For the first few days, we laughed as we found property after property that was outrageously priced.  "Why don't we just buy a helicopter while we're at it and we can fly ourselves to the lake! LOL".  

And then, just as it happened with our Zionsville house, we accidentally found the perfect place.  We stumbled upon a property that was reasonably priced, that we absolutely loved, and that made this whole façade all of the sudden feel like an actual possibility.  It was move in ready, but we could still add value to it.  It was on a fantastic lake that is less than 1.5 hours from our house.  It checked all of our boxes....so without overthinking it too much (uncharacteristic for me), we contacted our killer real estate agent for life (Dan Braun) with a couple questions.  "What would this look like...? Do lake properties hold value? Are your free Monday?"  Fast forward a couple of days, and we're driving south on State Road 37 towards Lake Lemon in Nashville, IN headed to see this place, along with a couple of others for comparison.

I'll spare you all the details in the process, but let me just stay this.  We never dreamed we could make this happen at this stage in our lives, but after conversation after conversation, and prayer after prayer, and pouring over our budget, and making lots of sacrifices, we ended up deciding that we wanted to do this to create a place where we could spend quality time and make memories with our kids no matter what else was going on in the world. 

So, without further ado, here are some of the listing pictures of our new lake house!!  

As part of the Lake House transaction, we also pulled the trigger on a new boat that we could park at our new place.  This was always a combo-deal for us - we didn't want a Lake House without a boat, and so as we budgeted and planned, we planned for both.  We ended up getting a Lowe Pontoon (tritoon) with a 150 hp motor that seats 11 people and cruises fast enough to pull a tube.  It's amazing.

As a side note - we knew NOTHING about boats or true lake life, so our first few foray's into the boating world were quite comical.  From the time we dropped it in Racoon Lake and I tried to park it in a wet slip (I hit the dock three or four times and people were recording me with a cell phone), to the first time trailering it (we got it out of the water and patted ourselves on the back before realizing it was totally cockeyed on the trailer and we had to put it back in and redo it), it's been one MAJOR learning curve.  

We closed on the house on September 1st, and have had many trips down there this season before the weather turned cold.  From our first weekend down over Labor Day, to a week long trip on fall break, to my annual guys trip (dubbed Mancation), we have already had an absolute blast with our new place.  Every time we go out on the water, we smile and say, this was the best decision we have ever made!  Here's to trying new things, going off the beaten path and being a little rogue once in a while :)

Here are some pictures from our adventures so far! 

We can't wait for the memories we create next year!!