I'm Interrupting Your Regularly Scheduled Blog Viewing

I finally had my interview on Monday. And of course am all stressed that it didn't go well. I'm rethinking my answers to their questions. I could have answered them differently. Said this, not said that. I had things I wanted to say, but didn't. They asked things I wasn't prepared for. Didn't ask things I thought would be standard interview questions. UGH. As of this morning, I think my letter will start out, "I'm sorry..."

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Many of you know this by now, but as of a month ago, we had every intention to stay in military housing the entire time we lived here. Things can, apparently, change quickly! A long story short, several factors led us to consider looking into buying a house. A friends realtor called me, and Saturday we went out to look at houses for the first time!

We met him at 2 pm at a house that I thought we would love. It was a great house! It was extremely well maintained. The only problems were the tiny living room and the backyard was more or less a steep hill. It did have a large family room downstairs that would help make up for it, but dang that backyard would be horrible to maintain! Especially if Roby is gone in the summer!

The second house we went to, I loved immediately! It seemed much more open. It was a tri-level instead of a split level like most of the houses we've seen around here. The living room was a nice size, as well as the kitchen, and family room. The dining area was over linoleum which is a plus for me as I don't understand putting a table over carpet. An extra bonus, it had a basement for the washer/dryer and storage. The backyard was flat, and had a six foot privacy fence. Two down sides. One is that the second and third rooms are about the size of Natalie's room now. That would mean that we would have to get rid of Ethan's bed and buy him a twin. That is doable. The other is that they aren't including the refrigerator.

The third and last house we looked at was a little bigger than the other two. But quite a bit less maintained. It had been on the market for almost five months for a reason. The back yard was big, the rooms were all a decent size...but it just didn't feel quite right.

I wanted to go back to the second house. We both really liked it. We can live with the kids having small rooms, especially with a living room and family room! Our realtor told us that for our price range it was a really really good deal, probably one of the best we would find. He was in no way pushy, but honest. And I believe him! We are on a limited, military budget, especially with me going to school and not working. But we do want something nice. Not perfect, but better than what we're in.

We decided then and there to look around a little closer, then put an offer on the house. We went to his office, signed some papers, he faxed them over and we went over to Fonda's for dinner and to pick up the kids. We hadn't talked to them about the whole house thing yet because it had come about so quickly and I wasn't sure how house hunting would go. At dinner this is about how the conversation when:

Roby: We're trying to buy a house.
Ethan: Cool, does that mean we need to start packing?
Natalie: Can we take all our stuff? And will there be a place to write with chalk?

I took pictures the second time we went to the house. They aren't great pictures, but they are pictures regardless!

Here is the front of the house.

This will be Natalie's room. Its hard to see the sponge painted odd brown color. It seems MUCH lighter in the picture, but it is not that color in person, I promise! And it will be painted!

This will be Ethan's room. We are considering keeping it this yellow color. His bed quilt has a similar yellow in it, so it may work just fine. It is something I will need to look at again.

I don't know if the picture I took of the master bedroom didn't load or if I forgot to take one...but I'm not going to figure that out right now...

Looking down the few stairs to the front room on the right and kitchen/dining area on the left.

Down those steps and turn to your left are the steps down to the living room.

The pictures make it seem much smaller than it is. I believe its 20+ feet by something or other...but I can't remember right now.

Back up to the "main" floor and the kitchen.
The cupboard space doesn't look all that immense, but there is a pantry across from the fridge, so I'm not worried about it at all!

The door to the backyard is next to the kitchen in the dining area.
The backyard with six foot privacy fence! It does need to be treated, but what wood fence doesn't after seven years? Maggie won't be able to escape this! There is one place that we will need to put pavers or something under the fence, but that's it!

Roby talking to our realtor in the front room.

Looking at these pictures makes me excited all over again!!! After making such a big decision, you tend to second guess yourself! I really need to stop, I think we got a fabulous deal, especially for the area we are buying!!! (I learned yesterday that a house a block away with the same floor plan and almost same exact condition sold for $10,000 more the same day.) In our offer, we requested a few things, and of course went under their asking price. Because the house is in such good condition and what we were asking, we didn't try to low-ball too much. Because of that, their counter offer was only slightly higher, but they didn't want to leave the fridge. Our counter-counter offer was the same price but to leave the fridge. I'm sure we could have bought a fridge, but this just makes it much easier and less out of pocket for us right now. They accepted our offer with a verbal agreement! All of this happened in less than six hours! I was shocked!

When we got home after viewing houses, Maggie looked like this:

Pictures never do reality justice...but her head was BRIGHT PINK!

How did this happen you ask? She found the leftover cake from Natalie's party that was in a trash bag on a chair. And ate it. It was probably five slices or so...but waaaay too much for any pug!!!

Her stomach was huge! And she needed a bath ASAP!!!

Not to mention her farts for three days were horrid!!!!

We had the home inspection yesterday. It went really well. There is some hail damage on the north side of the house, but because we are getting a VA loan, it has to be fixed before we can get the loan. The sellers are getting the whole side replaced instead of a few places here and there. The A/C and furnace need to be serviced which is something that needs to be done anyway. We are asking the sellers to do it. The worst they can say is "no." And there is one safety thing that needs to be fixed, but it is a $20 job that can take Roby less than an hour!!! FABULOUS! Things are moving along! We are scheduled to cloase on April 24th at 9 am, and should be out of here before the end of the month! Anyone wanna come help us move in less than a week!?!?!?! ;-)