We're crazy. We know it. But we think it's the right thing!

August is always a crazy (but good) month. This August we've been celebrating birthdays for Shiloh, now 6 and Avdon, almost 4. We had a special celebration and family reunion to celebrate my grandma, now 75, with a trip to Omaha. Somewhere in there we managed to say "happy 9th anniversary", I think while changing a poopy diaper. We enjoyed visits from sisters and parents and friends. We're attempting to navigate the whole school system thing and get Shiloh set up to start kindergarten at her Spanish immersion school and Avdon at his Spanish immersion preschool. Brielle is teething and cruising. And because we didn't have quite enough to keep us busy, we thought August would be a good month to buy a house. A big house. With another family. As in, we're actually moving forward with plans to set up a hippie commune.

The official purchase won't happen until September 4. We'll move in shortly before Oct 1, meaning Brielle will get to move twice in the first year of her life. What a lucky baby (and very tired mama!). Moving again is a little disheartening, but hopefully we learned from our mistakes with the last move. We will definitely not lose the hardware to the beds and table this time!

But you're still waiting to hear more about the hippie commune, right? So really what we are doing has a pretty deep meaning to us, but I'll start with the physical specifics because I know that's where your mind is :). We bought (or hopefully will, come 9/4) a 3-plex which basically is a 3-unit apartment building. It's a big house built in 1900 and each story is an individual apartment. Ours will be on the bottom and is 1600 sq feet with 3 bedrooms. The middle unit has an identical layout with 3 bedrooms and then the top unit has a spacious 2 bedroom unit. The friends we bought with want the top unit and we're in the process of finding the right people to rent the middle unit.

We'll each have our own private units but then have some shared space as well, like some hallways, a 3-season porch, the yard, and the basement which we will eventually finish to add some more space.

You're probably also worried that we co-bought the house. So was our home owners insurance rep. "Do you KNOW the people you bought with?" she asked. "Yes, we've known them for several years," I replied. "Do you TRUST them?" She asked even more incredulously. "Yes," I said again. "So what information do you need in order to give us a quote?" I had to ask.

It's different, it's strange, it's complicated and for sure, there's an element of risk. It's also amazing what can be done when resources are pooled, life is experienced together, and you have a safety net of others to share the burden of a mortgage with.

We're not sure exactly what life will look like in our intentional community (which unlike "hippie commune" is the technical term for what we're doing!). We know there will be elements of shared resources including money, time, occasional meals, garden, work, etc. We'll be looking for a way(s) we can serve our community and neighborhood together. We're excited to open up our home for the use of small groups and Bible studies to meet, people to gather and the deep/tough conversations about our messy hard lives to be had. And we are totally pumped to have game night with friends and not have to even leave our house. We're excited that our kids will get to experience a deeper element of being raised by a village even though we're in the heart of a city

So, that's the new scoop. The Trips couldn't possibly lead a boring, normal life, right?

I'm sure you still have some burning questions...fire away!!