House hunting

A month after we got married, Jeff and I moved into our house in the south end of Calgary, a house that we had built together.  We had both lived up north, but because we were both working in the south end of the city - in fact, I was working 20 minutes south of the city, which from my house, was over an hour commute on a daily basis - so we decided moving south would be the best way to go.  If only we'd known that I'd get pregnant immediately and only work for another 8 months....  Since Cole was born, we've been talking about moving back up to the north end of the city.  Our Church is there, my family is up there, all our friends live up in the north end.  Although we love our house and have great neighbors here, who we will really miss, we have been feeling a bit isolated and disconnected down here.  When you have 2 young kids, the hour that it takes to drive home after an evening outing to visit family or friends can often be prohibitive, so we don't get to nearly as many things as we like.  And since most of our friends and family also have young children, it works both ways!  So, after talking about it for 2 years, and trying once in the past, but pulling our house off the market because of the financial crash, we have decided to go for it and move back up north.
So, we are currently trying to sell our house, and hunting for a new one.  It's been an adventure, to say the least!  We have looked at probably close to 50 houses already.  Turns out, we're rather demanding homebuyers!  Problem is, we have a house that we love.  Jeff has a garage that fits both our vehicles plus has room for all his tools, a very rare find in this city.  I have a big, beautiful kitchen, a huge ensuite, and a room all to myself for scrapbooking.  Our only regret is that we have a very tiny yard.  We'd love to have more room for the kids to play.  We're having a very hard time finding a house that compares,on a lot that we like, at least, in the range we're willing to pay!
Today, we thought we finally found the house.  It is a beautiful 4 bedroom house, with a good sized kitchen, a formal dining and living room, and a huge great room.  It has an undeveloped basement, which Jeff loves, because then we can do whatever we want with it.  And it had a great sized lot, with a very nice playcentre already on it. It's in a neighborhood we both like, with a community centre that has a splash park and playground, and where lots of our friends live already.   We both loved it.  But...we found out that the neighborhood it is in is what is called a "bare land condo development."  I'm not sure what exactly that is, but essentially, these large, expensive, single family detached homes, are subject to a condo board!  So, there are rules on what you can put on your property and where, rules on where you can plant trees, rules on where you can park....  It's quite ridiculous!  Whoever heard of a single family home being subject to a condo board?   There was even one rule in the agreement that said that owners shall not make or permit any disturbing smells in the unit.  I had to laugh, because with a toddler and an infant, there is no shortage of disturbing smells in my house!!  But seriously, does that mean that I might get fined if I cook ethnic food and you can smell it from the street?  Or if we barbeque in the back yard and a neighbor finds the smell of meat cooking disturbing?  Or it I plant a lilac bush (if I can even get that approved in the first place!)?   Aargh!  Jeff wants to put a shed or workshop on the property, which would have room for it, since the garage will not hold both our vehicles and all his tools.  But it looks like it's unlikely to get approved.  So, it looks unlikely that we'll be buying this house.  Very sad.
On a somewhat lighter note, we thought maybe yesterday we were going to look at our dream house.  We were browsing through foreclosures and found a bungalow on 2 acres of property in a very swanky area of the city, where most of the properties would be well over a million dollars.  And this one was under $800,000.00!  The pictures on MLS made it look like it could be a nice place.  Check it out, http://abmls.mlxchange.com/Pub/EmailView.asp?r=1169758620&s=ALB&t=ALB  not too bad, right? 
Well, the realtor was quite creative with the photography, and that blanket of snow covers a multitude of evils!  Oh my goodness, it was bad!!  The yard was overgrown and filled with dead trees, garbage, cigarrette butts, and crap, literally.  The house was very run down, dingy and "rustic" to put it politely.  It obviously had mice, and we're pretty sure it had had a grow-op in the garage!  I wish I would've taken pictures of what it was really like! You would've had to bulldoze everything and start all over again, and then a person could've maybe had their dream house.  But, the new ring road they are building here will be running right in front of it, so that's not ideal either.  It was not a challenge we wanted!  I was just eager to get out of there, I felt dirty afterwards!
So.... the house hunt continues.  It is hard not to get discouraged, when we look and look and nothing seems to quite meet our needs.  On the other hand, our house hasn't sold yet either, so that holds us back from making an offer anyways.  This is definitely an exercise in trusting God for his perfect timing!  Meanwhile, looking and dreaming is fun, trying to keep a house show-worthy with 2 small children is not!!
If you pray, your prayers that this will all work out and that we will not become too discouraged would be very much appreciated!