When I got the phone call, I was so happy and excited that I had said yes and hung up before I thought of my kids. Throughout the rest of the time that I worked, my thoughts were laced with anticipation and anxiety with the images of Samantha and Kyle's faces after I told them. Ending up not getting any work done, I completed the task I was working on and looked up all the houses in Knoxville that were for sale and what the local schools had to offer for class courses. Finally, after about 3 hours of clicking on dead-end sites, I found one. The house was perfect. It was a 4-bedroom, 2 bath house with a big, fenced in yard, located in a beautiful neighborhood, that just happened to be only a couple of blocks away from a school that had almost all of the classes that Samantha and Kyle were interested in. The school was a public school called South Houston High. I looked back at the price of the house and found that even without the company's help; I would still be able to afford it without going broke. I was lucky to get this job. The pay was about 3x what I'm making now, it was family oriented, I got a month of paid vacation per year, which was new to me as I only get 2 weeks per year now, and my soon to be boss was extremely nice when he called me. He told me that to get me to join their team of private investigators, the company that was hiring me said that they were willing to pay all of our moving expenses, not to mention, they would pay for the down payment and the first 2 months of the new house's mortgage and that all I needed to do was find the perfect place, hire a rental vehicle that would come and help us load up at our house then drive all our belongings to the new house and then proceed to unload them and to tell the company all of the expenses and they would take care of it.
Thinking of this, I called the realtor, and asked if there was a virtual tour of the inside of the house that I could take. She said there was, and gave me the website that it was on. Once I got there, I thought that she was going to hang up with me, but she stayed on the phone and talked me through each of the rooms, and told me the history and some interesting facts about the house, like the owner that had previously lived there was a guy named David and that sadly, he had died, leaving his family to sell the house and his belongings as they pleased. I thought that was sad, and I told her so. I also told her that I was in love with the house and asked when would be the best time to meet and talk paperwork. But when she said that she could meet with me today, I told her that I lived out of state and that I could be there tomorrow instead, to which she agreed and gave me her cell phone number so I could call her when I got in town. I said thank you and we hung up.
Sighing with relief that I had found such a perfect house, I glanced up at the clock on my computer. It said 4:15. Oh, dang nabit! I picked up the phone again and called the house. When they answered, they sounded far away from the phone so I figured that I was on speaker. I preceded to tell Samantha and Kyle that I would be coming home shortly and that I had a business meeting to go to so I would leave after I packed my bags. They were fine with that, although they seemed a little tired when they said so. I told them that I loved them, and then hung up. I looked through my phone's caller I.D. to find the number that had called me this morning. In a short period of time, I told them that I had found a place and would be coming to Knoxville, and would be there in about 3-4 hours. They asked why I would be in town so soon, so I told them that I would be going to meet up with the realtor and fill out paperwork. They said to call when I got to my hotel and then we would discuss how we were going to go about the paperwork and prices. I said ok and hung up. Shutting down my computer, I grabbed my things and left for home.
The entire drive there, I only thought of one thing. I can't wait to tell the kids.