Hi everyone. Sorry for the lack of post but to be honest there pregnancy is going very smooth (keeps crossing fingers). and there hasn’t been a ton to mention till today. About a month ago we decided to, on Nicole’s whim, take a trip to Lake Hughes and check out some houses. With our baby on the way we really wanted to have a place of our own and Lake Hughes is one of the only areas of southern California where it is possible for us to afford a house.

Lake Hughes for the uninitiated is in the high desert about 30 minutes northwest of Santa Clarita (aka. Magic Mountain). Its far away and close, all at the same time. As an example, from our place in Pasadena, it takes 90min-2 hours to get to the beach. From Hake Hughes, the same 90min-2 hours. Overall for most of the day to day driving we just add another 30-40 minutes to our Pasadena commutes. The big difference is that there will be less shopping and restaurants directly in our neighborhood. But as a wise man named Jetfuel said, “we still get Amazon Prime”.

Now with the added commute time, it is a bit further to get to work, but we are making changes in that for the baby anyway. Luckily Nicole gets a good amount of time off for maternity leave. During this time, she won’t be driving to work anyway so I’m the only one commuting. Once Nicole has to go back though we plan to phase out my drive and I’ll be telecommuting part of the time. This should allow us to avoid daycare and keep it so we aren’t both driving down the mountain everyday.

Now, that we have a plan for one of us to always be home with the baby we can start the fun part of Raising a Rural Baby!

Nicole and I have lots of dreams for what our new place and rural living will allow us to do. Many of them we really wanted for our baby. Check them out below:

1. Having a yard
2. Raise some chickens!
3. Grow some of our own food.
4. Have a place we can say is ours.
5. Eventually be debt free
6. Have a “big” dog
7. Be in an area that is a real community

These are just some of the things we really wanted for us and for our baby, but in my 20 minutes of googling I found some other great info on raising rural kids I’m excited to share. Check out some of post below:

Modern Homesteading – 5 Reasons homesteading may be right for your family

The Stir – Reasons to Raise Country Kids