Nancy Gilbertson and Ed Cotta got married June 30, 1999.  This isn't just two people in love: Ed had his four kids (Elizabeth 11, Alex 9, Evan 7, and Katelyn 5) and Nancy had her two kids (Annie 12 and Erin 6).

They had been talking about marriage for most of the three years they were dating. Their greatest concern was getting a house for this large crowd and Ed’s home office. However, finances after the divorces did not look very attractive. In June, at a church meeting Nancy asked every one to pray for them to find an affordable house that could fit eight. 

Wow did Gods blessing fall on them. Old friends come out of the woodwork!

One old friend, Mike had married a Real Estate agent, Jo.  Ed and Mike hadn’t talked in almost 10 years.  Mike just had a feeling he had better call Ed or he wouldn’t be able to find him. Funny thing, Jo specializes in finding homes for those in difficult situations.

Another friend was a close business associate of Ed’s.  He was managing several Trust Funds that were maturing.  He mentioned to Ed that he was thinking about rolling them over into a Home Loan.

Bingo.  In ten days they found a six bedroom home in a great neighborhood. In another ten days escrow closed.

After finding the house they needed to get married within the 10 days of escrow.  So, they called Grace Lutheran Church.  What a week for the head secretary (Lynn) to be out of the office.  Well the following Monday Lynn called back.  She made an appointment with Pastor Dave, the Nancy and Ed on Tuesday.  He married them on Wednesday (June 30th).  Escrow closed on Thursday (July 1st).  Too bad it took more than ten days to pack, move and unpack!  (Hey, maybe I want to keep some of that stuff in boxes!)

At the July meeting at the church, Nancy was quoted as saying, “You guys must have prayed hard.”

Here is the house

Here is the floor plan

Some neat things we did:

After the flood, we re-piped the entire house and added a hot water re-circulating system.

We pulled the carpet out of the downstairs and tiled every room.

We have one washer and two dryers downstairs and one washer and one dryer upstairs.

Divided the boys bedroom into two smaller rooms.