Proud Homeowners

We are now the proud owners of 2 homes! Prayerfully in less than an hour, that will change to 1 home. :)

I came to work with Brad this morning (I’m in his office typing this now) and played around until our final walk through this morning. The walk through went great!! We even pulled up some of the carpet in the dining room and bedrooms and if the bit of hardwood we saw underneath is any indication of the rest of the floors we will be happy campers! What we can see looks great and there stands the chance that it will not need to be re-finished! We’ll know more on that tonight.

While at the walk through, we got a call from our realtor’s office in Indiana letting us know that we are closing on our house out there after all! The closing was scheduled for 3 but has been pushed back to 4. We are very thankful to have it close today! After the walk through our wonderful realtor, Bob Smith, took us to lunch at Smokey Bones. We had good food, conversation, and company. I really enjoyed it. Then it was on to the closing.

My goodness....the closing. :) It was definitely more than we bargained for, but in a very good way! Brad signed all the papers and I sat there admiring my strong husband as he signed page after page. ;-) Our attorney that was present for the closing gave Brad and I a lot to think about and has started us in the process of getting our will done. That was a very sobering time. I do not like to think about the “what ifs” of life. I know that we need to have all of that in order so that if anything ever happens our kids will be taken cared of. I still don’t like it.

We did have a lot of laughs in that closing though. I was not present when we bought our house in Indiana; I was tying up the loose ends out here. It was a wee bit of a different experience---but fun and very exciting too! I’m anxious to get in the house and get things moving!!!

I am so thankful for how the Lord has blessed us today! If I don’t get back up on here this weekend, have a FANTASTIC weekend!!!!

What a day

We went to a new church today and both Brad and I really did like it. Our Sunday School class was great and service was really good too. There was only one downfall for me. All the kids, Benjamin and Justin included sit in service with us. Only preschool age and younger have a children’s church type program. I’ll have to plan a little for Sunday mornings and bring some activities for them.

After church we drove to the new house to see how long it would take us to get to church, and to our delight it was only about 20 minutes! We went to Brad’s brother’s house from there and enjoyed lunch and football! I love getting to see our family like we’ve been doing. I didn’t realize just how much I missed it while we were in Indiana. It’s good to be back with the family.

We were all happy to see the Jets win the game! Now, let’s hope they beat the Steelers next weekend and the Packers beat the Bears! :D Looks like we have a good Superbowl game brewing!

Another week of school

We’ve got another week of school down. I have the grade book completely set up and I have all tests and work graded from this past week!! This weekend I will set up some more lesson plans and figure out some crafts to do with the kids over the next week. Justin said that he really wants to do some crafts, so I’ll have to see what I can come up with.

I am anxious for the close of our houses! The picture above will be the new school room. The older kiddos will sit at the counter and then I will have my little table for Justin and Benjamin. I have so many plans for that room---and the whole house for that matter. I am so thankful for being here at Mom and Dad’s but I’m looking forward to getting our stuff out of storage and settling back into our routine.

It’s now officially 13 days till closing on our house in VA. The official day for us to close in IN is the 31st, but we may close early if everything can be pulled together. I would LOVE to close early. Brad and I are already planning the new kitchen. We have a rough floor plan mocked up and have been cabinet and countertop shopping. We still have to figure all of that out, but it’s neat getting to design my kitchen. :D :D

We are going to try out some a new church this Sunday and we are hopeful that we will find our new church soon! I pray you have a great weekend!!!!

I'm alive

...but just barely alive. Life over the past almost 2 months has been a bit of a roller coaster. We went to VA the middle of October and we stayed for 2 weeks. Over the course of those 2 weeks we looked at many houses. Many, many houses. And it was in that time that we found one that we liked. It was a beautiful home, but small. I was a little skeptical over the size of the house, but I fell in love with the kitchen and the possibilities of how we could make the house work for us.

After putting our offer in, it took a while to hear from the bank and then we played the wait and see game. We had the inspections done and wound up walking away from the house because the septic system was messed up. I was heartbroken. I knew in my head it was the right thing to do, but my heart had a hard time catching up.

Back in Indy for a week, the girls and I got the house ‘ready’ for the move. We didn’t finish everything we needed to and that prompted another trip back for Brad and I over Thanksgiving...I’ll get to that later. My girlfriend, Sarah, would not have us leave without giving us a proper going away party first---and that she did! We had a blast. That week before I left will truly be a treasured week because of the time we were able to spend together. So, we had a fantastic party and some friends that we hadn’t seen in a while came too. It was really special. The girls wound up spending the night there and I picked Brad up from the airport by myself that evening. The next day was an emotional day of packing and cleaning.

Sarah, Chad, Dani, and Philip all came over and helped us. It was so hard pulling away from the house, but we knew we had another trip on the horizon in two weeks so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. We made it to VA with our Beverly Hillbilly trailer and got things going. Brad and I kept our bed out of storage and set it up on Mom and Dad’s sunroom. It’s nice getting to sleep in our own bed at night.

So the house hunting started again and we found a house right before Thanksgiving that we decided to put an offer in on. We had already looked at the house and I had said “no” from the beginning and I can see now why. Two days before Thanksgiving we put an offer in on the house and for “some” reason it was not received as of this past Monday. Our realtor went ahead and resubmitted the offer Monday afternoon and then we got a call on Tuesday....the bank that owns the house dropped the price of the house 58K!!!! We withdrew our offer and resubmitted at the new price! AND....drum roll....we were given a counter offer that we have accepted and should have a ratified contract Monday-ish. YAY! Then we will have 7 days to do the inspections and get everything going. BTW, I know the “some” reason, was God orchestrating all of this.

I’m very excited. And in other good news. We had 4 showings on our house this past week. Two of the showings came back with positive feedback. Prayerfully we will have more of an idea of what will happen this coming week.

Yesterday was Brad’s birthday. My man is 35. Brad’s little brother Luke’s birthday is today. Yes, their birthdays are a day apart. Luke and Melissa came up to VA and we went out to dinner and then we walked over to the mall and just had fun. Dinner was ‘okay’. We went to a Brazilian Steakhouse in Norfolk, and it was NOTHING compared to the one in Indy. But, the company was great and that made it all worthwhile. I did secretively let our waitress know it was Brad and Luke’s birthdays and they came out with cake at the end and embarrassed the dog mess out of the two of them! It was great.

Tomorrow we are going to check out a church near where our new house may be...I am prayerful that our hunt for a new church is not a long drawn out process....Have a great Sunday!!!

And the house is on the market!

What a busy two weeks. I keep sitting down to post on here and I get side tracked and stop. Let’s see. On Monday the 4th the house officially went on the market. I am excited and so super sad at the same time! We have done sooo much to it and I’m thrilled that it is ‘ready’.

Today we got new carpet installed in the bedrooms, hallway, stairs, living room, and school room. It looks *amazing*. While the carpet was going in I got a phone call to show the house at 6:15 this evening!!! I immediately started stressing and feeling sick to my stomach. The girls were here with me and the boys were at a friends house. We busted our behinds getting the house ready. Bug, Jazzer, and I were EXHAUSTED by the time we were done and although it wasn’t “perfect” it was pretty darn close. I picked the boys up, then grabbed the girls and we went to a friend’s for dinner while the house was showing. Here’s to hoping it “showed” well!!!

Tomorrow pictures will be taken of the house and hopefully we will get some offers coming in. The Lord really has blessed us with this house and I will miss it greatly. I will miss my friends even more though. I can’t imagine not having this amazing people in my day to day life anymore.