I wanted to do this blog to keep all my friends and family, near and far, up to date with my life that I have been blessed to be spending with Trent Eskelson, the love of my life. So it starts like this...
June 2011, projection: devastation for Minot, North Dakota. Half the town was about to be under water. And so it goes; Minot flooded and took hundreds of homes. My house was fine, thank god my dad bought a house on the south end of town. But as for my place of work, not so much. See I was working at a downtown convenience store in the center of the valley of Minot. Called Enerbase, it was the hub of all the Enerbase's in town. Since this store flooded out, other Enerbase stores were in need of a lot of help. I was sent to work at the North Enerbase on Broadway.
This job was anything far from glamorous. Or tolerable for that matter. The woman who ran it was cranky, old, and just plain bitter and annoying. There was just one thing that made these summer days stuck at North Enerbase pass faster. 11 o clock comes around and the smell of grease and frying steak fills the air. But it wasn't the steak and fries I was too keen on...:)
Enter: The Cheesesteak Factory. A little sandwhich shop stuck in the corner of the North Enerbase, a hole in the wall and best kept secret for lovers of all things cheesesteak in Minot. Enter: Owner, 33 year old Trent Eskelson. Something about this goofy, entertaining, business owner magnetized me to him. I didn't even realize he was just meant to be mine until I found myself sauntering over to his shop to ask him out. Wait what? I don't DO things like that! I don't ask people out! But I did. The universe drew my right to him like a magnet. All I thought about was the big blue eyes and fluffy slightly graying hair and endearing smile and goofy personality all day long. The most common thought during my 2011 summer?
"When's the Cheesesteak guy gonna get here?"
July 4, 2011.
The day I knew I wanted to be with Trent forever.
Today:
Trent owns a home on 10th Ave 2 Blocks west of Minot State University. Inadvertently, I ending up moving in with him a few months after dating. Again, it was a natural shift in the universe that brought me to moving in. It just happened. It wasn't discussed, and one night I just didn't go home. I wasn't sad or scared about it, it was just natural. I don't miss my bed and I don't miss waiting for my brother to get out of the shower. I feel like I belong here. The man waited his whole life to find the woman he's going to marry, why keep the two apart?
The age difference really ain't no thang. 13 years but I feel like I've known him my whole life. Now, we've been together nearly 9 months. But we act like we've been married for years, we laugh, tickle, fight, bicker, have tons of fun, and fit together seamlessly even though we're very different. We often joke we have a business scheme: He makes people fat with his sandwiches, then sends them to me, being a fitness professional. :)
I'm in love with his family. He's the baby, his first older brother Tim lives in Williston with his wife Stacie and they have two girls. His oldest brother Travis lives in Minot and has a little boy. They're such adorable kids! And pleasantly well behaved...just goes to show those who are raised right will raise their own right :) Speaking of which, I LOVE his mom and dad! They remind me so much of my parents. I love them and miss them if I haven't seen them in a while. There is nothing better than a man with a good family. They're laid back, funny, good old country folk. His dad's dad is still alive and so is his mom's mom.
Let's take it to present day. We're living together in his tiny bachelor pad of a house and I love when he comes home every night. Thing is, we're ready for more space. He's REALLY ready. Now that we're togehter and there's two people living here. It's just not enough. So I'll update you on the story.
I'm junior status in college and will be graduating next May. I have a part time income (a pretty good one!) with Beachbody coaching, plus I teach 5-6 classes a week and train personal training clients at Bricks. I absolutely adore what I do, but as of right now it's no income to brag about as I'm paying off debts incurred to get my certifications and pay for Beachbody trips. So. Think Minot...flooded. Full of oil rig workers and foreigners looking for work. Work? No problem. A place to live? NEW STORY.
These rigges make TONS of money. Thus driving the cost of a place to live WAY up. Ridiculous and unfair, yes. Anything we can do about it? No. So Trent's income is all we have to go on when purchasing a house. For what he was approved for, finding something nice for that kind of money say, in Fargo, would be a piece of cake. Here, that kinda money would get you a shack like we're living in now only a little better. All the shacks are also grabbed up the day they go on the market. New plan.
So Trent finds a listing of land on Bisman near Foxholm, ND 10 miles out of town. Pretty decent price...So we go to check it out. Beautiful land, amazing price, can't pass it up! Next step? Grabbing the land and finding a manufatured home in his price range to put on it! Bam!
eehhh not that simple. We shopped around and finally settled with a beautiful home from Iseman. Here's where to journey begins!
It's March 21, and yesterday we got an estimate for drilling a well. 12,700! woo!
The next step is to get the land surveyed, which must be done by the land owner.
Once we have the address from the survey, the Health Department needs to do an inpection for septic. After that, we can get an estimate for septic.
That's as far as we've gotten.
We need estimates from the well, septic, electric, all sent to the Bank. 5,000 down to the land owner. Whew. 1,000 to Iseman. Poor Trent :(
Once we have all those estimates and know how much this shindig is gonna cost, up for sale this house goes!! House has to be sold before we can touch the land. Once he throws his percentage down from the money he makes on this house, then starts the drilling and all the good stuff!! We might be spending a little time in his parents basement while we wait for our cute little gingerbread house to be set in place :)
I don't mind the struggle, everything we go through will only bring us closer together and make it that much sweeter when we tuck eachother in in our new home in Foxholm! I'm super excitedto be starting this chapter of life with him, and hopefully one day with both of our incomes together we can build our dream home :)
Thanks for learning our story and keep updated, I will post the journey as it unfolds and show pictures of our house once we have it! :D
