Well after going almost 2 days with no power after a pretty severe wind storm the wife finally see that I'm not so crazy in wanting to be prepared for stuff and agrees we need a generator.  We have 4 kids under the age of 10 so even though we can handle it a one year old is a different story.  

I want something big enough to power the majority of the house but not a wired in $3k unit either.  Thinking of the 7k/9k watt Champion unit from Costco but wanted to check on other options from experts out there.  Planning on having a plug in wired into the breaker box so we can simply plug it into the system and choose which options we want to power.  The house is right at 2000sqft so not huge.

The Champion unit is $900 shipped for a dual fuel or $750 shipped for the gas.  Is dual fuel worth the extra $150?  It isn't as powerful off of the LP but figured it might not be bad to have the option.

Not enough info.  

We need to know what you NEED to run to maintain your home.  You don't NEED massive amounts of power to GET BY.

Here is a very rough guide:  3500 watts will run everything important in a home but will not run a heat pump or an electric water heater.  Probably won't run a well pump either.  4500 watts SHOULD run a well pump but only if it's not too big.  5500 watts will handle most electric water heaters (most are 4500 watts when running) and you can usually run a well pump when the water heater is off on the 5500 watts.  

If you live in town and have a natural gas home with everything possible running off the natural gas, you can get by with an even smaller generator (no well pump).  A 3100 watt Champion inverter running on natural gas or propane would be ideal.  

I'm building a house and will have two generator transfer switches.  One is a whole house 200 amp switch.  The other one will be a 120 volt only transfer switch for a Champion inverter generator and will switch 4 circuits that I consider essential.  Everything else will be powered through my 5800 watt diesel generator.  We won't even try to run the heat pump/gas furnace.  Heat will be provided by an indoor wood stove and we'll cook with propane.  

So give us more details on what you want to run.  

Size wise I'm pretty sure the 9k/7k would be plenty big.  We are on city water and gas furnace.  Also have a hybrid electric water heater so it pulls almost no electricity.  I would rather play it safe and go a little bigger then needed though to keep the load low on it.  Also have about half of all lights converted to LED.

I'm sure the 9k/7k would be plenty big....and it'll also use plenty of fuel.  If you are good with the high fuel consumption of that large of a generator, then go with it.  It'll run what you need to without a doubt.

You can run your house with a lot lower watts though I suspect.

You'll have to have 4500 watts available for your water heater even though it is a hybrid.  It still has electric elements.  

Your gas furnace shouldn't be drawing too much electricity.  What about stove?  Gas or electric?  

I'm going to make a guess that you could run your house on a 3500 watt or even smaller as long as you aren't trying to run your water heater.  I think 5500 would ensure you can run the essentials in your house AND the water heater if the electric elements come on.

I went as small as I could and still run the loads I "must" have. 3500 watts is plenty for me. I doubt you need more than 5500 watts max. The fuel consumption is huge on the bigger gennys.

The 7.5/9k Champion is frequently put on sale at various stores, in my case BJs, for $550 for Black Friday.

I'm sure Costco has it on sale periodically, back when I had a Costco membership, they had similar sales.

LP is nice for versatility but puts out less power.

You might do an energy audit, this Genny might be more than you need, and it's thirsty.

I use a smaller Genny for a bigger house, 5500/6500 watt Honda EM6500, a bit noisy but tolerable.

I have a back feed breaker with interlock switch for my plug, all 30 amp rated.

You might think about using the 50 amp plug and cable, wires and breakers for your setup.