the plan.

Well we have a plan now which makes me feel better :) We are officially closing on Thursday at 3pm. Which is only a day's delay so that's not too bad now that I've heard about some of you being delayed for weeks!! So that means we'll get the keys to our home on Thursday evening!!! I've said it a thousand times already but it remains true: I'M SO READY FOR THIS TO BE OVER. To take a breath, relax, and focus on moving rather than all this legal junk. Now it just looks like we have to wait for about 48 hours more until this home is ours! Hooray!!!

the walk through

Last night's walk through went really well! We didn't find any issues at all, and it was really fun to walk around and imagine what our furniture will look like! The seller was there, and she graciously showed us all of the landscaping, hot tub, sprinkler system, etc. so we'd know how to do everything. She is this really cute little old lady, and she said that she knows "the house will love us" and she was so excited that we'd be starting our lives together in that home. She said that the house has seen a lot of love and she hopes we can continue that tradition. :)

She told us all about the neighbors (there is a young couple with 2 very young children living next door!), and she left us a ton of information about the house. It was really great to talk with her, and I'm so thankful we have such a nice and welcoming seller to deal with. I know most people don't even meet the seller when they're buying a home, but I'm glad we did!

We were so encouraged after the walk through, and it made everything we've been going through totally worth it! I had forgotten how much I loved the house, so it was good to get a reminder! :)

Now I just have to finish packing... woohoo! :)

big days coming up...

Tomorrow is our final walk through of our home! I can't believe it's here already! Basically we'll just walk through it and make sure that everything is up to the standards from inspection. I sincerely hope there aren't any issues. We're bringing along Ryan's mom because she has a LOT of experience with these walk throughs (they were an army family that moved around a lot).

I think the seller will be there too so we can ask her any questions we have... aka how to work the sprinkler system and how to landscape her beautiful yard! Stuff like that. I'm excited to see the house again...as silly as that sounds :)

7 days from now is our closing date! We'll be going on our lunch break because apparently it only takes about 45 minutes to sign your life away! And then I'm taking Thursday through Monday off for vacation and to get moved/settled.

Whew... I'm glad I got a lot of relaxation time in the last few weeks because the next few ones will be a doozy!

jumping in the deep end!

Well, our first meeting with the realtor (Susan) went great! She has a lot of energy, and she's going to be a great help to us on our first home buying experience. She definitely knows what she's doing--that's for sure.

She set us up with a lender, and after both of us talked with him on the phone today, we definitely have a good idea of the price range we can afford, which is encouraging. At least we have something to shoot for because we really didn't know before. So now we can focus our efforts in that range, and hopefully something will pop up!

Apparently we were looking at this all wrong. Of course :) I was wanting us to have a big down payment so our monthly payments wouldn't be so bad. Well we were told to put down as little as possible since the interest rates are so low. Better to keep "more in the bank" according to our lender. So the good news is, if we wanted to buy a house tomorrow, we'd have enough money for a down payment in our price range!

That's crazy cool! We're not rushing anything though. Our apartment lease is up in August, and if we have to we'll do month-to-month. But, the $8,000 tax credit for new home buyers is only effective if you close on a house before Dec. 1 of this year, so we still need to hustle a little! BUT--if it's not God's timing, then we'll just do without the tax credit. We just want to do things the right way and the way that's comfortable for us.

How exciting that we could be in a house by Christmas time though! Not getting too excited yet :) :) :)