ok, i love it...

Yep, it's official. I am in love with this house. It's in a great location for us (with fantastic neighbors), great price and best of all, it's a very sound house. The rooms are great sizes and laid out fantastic. I especially loved the sky light in the bathroom, very cute. It doesn't need any work, maybe just some landscaping work in the back yard. We are going to get an inspector to look through it, very throughly. I don't want anything to creep up on us once we move in. Things are going to be very tight for us so we can save like crazy. I had some plans to get some furniture in the next few months and I am willing to forgo a dining room table for a little while so we can save, save, save. Maybe with next year's tax refund! Planning to buy this house has completely changed my way of looking at money. Right now I don't really value or cherish the place we live. It's not mine, it's just this dwelling I live in and we are wasting our money on. A house though, it's ours. We are responsible for it and the things that might break in it. There are so many joys and I'm sure a few pains of having our very own place. I can't tell you what my favorite part of this whole thing will be. The huge master bedroom, my own bathroom, the backyard that we can finally get a BBQ for, a great kitchen to cook in, room to have parties, the *garage*! There are so many things we are looking forward to. Forest is going to see it tomorrow morning and give his approval. From there we'll put a bid on it and see what happens. I still don't really know what I am doing, so pray for us! We need all the help we can get!

Here is the house:

am I the only one?

I completely forgot that it's Spring Break! I woke up this morning at 6:45 to get ready as I usually do and then remembered that I'm taking Grace to speech therapy today. Then I remembered the reason WHY I'm taking her, because Jennie will be taking the girls to the Primary Activity today! This also means I don't have to work until 9. I got up an hour earlier than I needed to. Oh well, at least I'm ready to go now and can have a little bit of relaxation time before I go to work today. I'm just glad I realized that now or I probably would have woken everyone up!

Another minor hiccup in forgetting it's Spring Break is that I'm meeting a Realtor today about a that house on Reed. Our financing is pretty much sound (and way way within our budget, thank goodness) and if we love the house we're going to put a bid on it soon. We still have 3 months and a few weeks until we want to move in, which may cause some issues, but we have a few different options for dealing with that. The earliest we can close is in May, depending on what kind of financing we are able to get. I'm so excited, this has all just fallen into place. Even if that isn't the house we end up getting, knowing that we'll be owning our very own house in just a few short months is a feeling that I thought we wouldn't feel for a very long time. I need to be careful with my feelings though, I find myself wanting to pre-decorate this place and I shouldn't do that just in case we lose it or we end up not liking it! I imagine it will only get worse when I actually see it...

Since I don't have to leave for another hour, I'm going to either try to get my husband up (he's so lazy in the morning) or snuggle and chat.

we're sold, are they?

Wes showed me the house this morning and I really love it. It needs a little bit of TLC (namely just new paint) but overall everything else is great. The floors are fantastic, the bathrooms are very well maintained, it's got a great porch for entertaining... I am sold! Now the only problem is praying it stays on the market until our lease ends. Wes is going to talk to them about us putting down the deposit and first month's rent now to save it until the first part of July. We've also talked about buying it, so we are going to be needing a lot of advice if we do something like that. We just got rid of every last bit of our debt too, so that I'm sure helps.

So, Wes gave me the name of a loan agent named Karmen. Some of you may remember her from before the split of the Trophy Club Ward. She was excited to help see if we could even apply for the loan and after running a credit check, we passed! So, that lifts a load from my mind knowing that if we wanted to buy we would be more than set to go ahead with it. We think the house on Main is insanely over priced so if we did BUY a house it would either have to be dropped dramatically in price or we would find another house in Roanoke. There are 4 bedroom homes in the Parks that are cheaper than what they want for that 2 bedroom (without a garage) in Old Town. Crazy!

So, I'm sailing through this pretty well so far and I know it's because we're living the gospel. Heavenly Father is really looking out for us on this one, he's made it more than possible for us to live our dream of finally buying a house. Now I just hope we can afford it down the road! More praying to come, I think...

stress!

There is another house in Old Town Roanoke that is for sale or rent. It would be smarter for us to buy the house, but I am still very worried about the entire thing. I was supposed to go look at it yesterday with Wes, a realtor that is on our Ward, but he found out that the owners had another lease in the works. I was pretty crushed, but figured I had 4 months left to really start worrying about it. McKay and Alexa are begging us to move in with them once our lease ends and as much as I love the Dendy's, I don't want to ruin the good thing we have going! Jennie and I were talking about this last night and no matter how much you get along with someone, strange things can happen when you are living together. A month wouldn't be enough time to worry about, but in the situation that we would be moving in, who knows how long it would take for us to find a house!

So, anyway, I get an e-mail from Wes this morning saying that the lease deal is falling apart and is still on the market. Imagine my glee. It was like a huge weight was lifted from me! Now, I still have no idea if this will be the house we end up getting, as it's still a number of months away until our lease ends, but I got on my knees and thanked Heavenly Father for at least helping me feel better and again for the strength to feel calm during this whole thing. I had a stress stomach ache last night, something I haven't had in a number of years. That is how stressed out I am feeling over this! It's really quite ridiculous!

We're going to look at the house later today. The funny thing is, I want this house so bad but I don't even know if I am going to like it. I sure hope so, or all of this worrying will be over nothing! I am glad Enrichment is tonight, I need something very fun to keep my mind off of things for a while. See some of you tonight!

i'm sick and tired...

Of being sick and tired! I somehow caught the flu that is going around. I guess I was due, I sailed through most of the flu season without so much as a cough. When you get slobbery whacks to the face several times a day, I think your immune system starts building up. I didn't go to work yesterday or today. In the past I've just had allergy problems and not really the flu so I could function decently and not pass the flu germs around, but I feel absolutely terrible. I couldn't even stand up for 5 minutes and help with dinner, I got so pooped. There is no way I could take care of Grace properly and I don't want her getting sick either.

So, I spent the day yesterday sitting and organizing my scrapbook stuff, finally. On Monday I found this fantastic tower that turned out to be a life saver. Everything fit into it except my letter sized paper and stickers. I bought three portable file folders for that and they stack, so everything is pretty and organized into a workable system. I'm happy. Now everything is pretty much being boxed up because Forest is taking over my desk until we move and buy him a new one (or me a new one...hehe). We're still kind of freaking out slightly about moving. Do we buy? Do we rent? Do we have enough money saved up? I don't think we're ready to buy yet and as my parents are probably going to move down here, we would rather wait until they are settled here before we decide where we are going to be permanently. We're, of course, wanting to stay in Roanoke forever! As long as we're not in an apartment anymore...I'll be happy.

I think we found our house...

I've been searching the past few weeks for homes that Forest and I could rent. I've been eying one on Pine Street for the last few weeks, which could always be a possibility as well. Last night I went searching again and found one on Main Street. The rent is actually less and it has more room. We still have 4 months until we can move in but the one on Pine has been there for at least 4. So far this house seems perfect for us. It has a garage, a huge back porch, a nice yard with lots of trees, the paint colors are adorable, the size of the rooms is perfect, I just love it!

Right now it seems like we are in a huge rut. We know we're moving in July but have no idea where to. We don't know if we'll be able to find a place suitable for us and within our price range. We're packing things up early but we are just ready to get out of here and move on! It just feels like the next 4 months are going to crawl by. I've been doing a lot of praying about this and thankfully the Lord has kept me pretty calm about it. If it's meant to be, it'll all fall into place. I hope...

long and short

Well, we are back in the very warm state of Texas. I am loving the weather we are having the most. It makes me feel a little bit better about leaving my family, the fact that I don't have to freeze anymore!

We're right back into the swing of things, work is going well for Forest and of course, I am glad to get back to Gracie. When Jennie picked us up from the airport last week Grace was squealing so loud, it was much better than any hug! It felt like we were gone a lot longer than we had been, although now that we are back into everything it doesn't feel like we were there for very long at all! I guess that is the way it always goes though.

Now, I mentioned in my last post that I was waiting until I got back to my keyboard to tell some stories. The reason for that is because I have an ergonomic keyboard, the flat as a pancake keyboards start hurting my hands if I use them for too long. So, here is the gist of my trip:

We *finally* landed on Sunday and neither of us had coats on, they were packed in our suitcases. When we got on the flight deck we ran into the airport. I forgot what real cold felt like! Our baggage claim carousel was right in front of two sets of double doors, so we were shivering until our bags came. Thankfully they were the first ones! We went through one set of the double doors to wait for my parents and walked right back in. It was the coldest temperature I have had the pleasure (or displeasure?) to feel in a very long time. My newly Texified heart cannot take that cold! My Mom finally arrives and Forest and I (quickly!) put our bags in the car and ditch the hugs until later. We climbed into the back seat with my sister and realized how crushed we were all going to be on our trip to Frankenmuth. But, it's alright, we're family, right?

Monday morning comes and we all pile in the car to head to Frankenmuth. We had a nice afternoon shopping around while the guys were pretty bored. It's full of little craft places where my Mom, sister and I spend hours oohing and ahhing over knick knacks that we don't need. My Dad told Forest that next time he needs to remember to bring earplugs.

As you all may remember, my Dad had back surgery in August. Growing up whenever we would do heavy walking with my Dad, we had to take frequent sit breaks, which was fine but we always felt bad dragging him all over creation while he was in pain. That's not the case anymore, in fact, I think he has more stamina than the rest of us. It took a little bit of getting used to. I kept wondering if we needed to take a break and we never did. It was really great to go have fun with him and not worry at all whether or not he was in pain.

After our shopping trip in the cold, we sat down for dinner at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant. They have excellent chicken dinners, served family style by waitresses dressed in traditional German clothing. We decided to go all out and choose the 5-meat plate, just to try some new things. We had chicken, Kasseler Rippchen, Sauerbraten, Bratwurst and Jaeger Schnitzel. I'll let your imagine run wild as to what they actually are. They were all very very good though. I haven't eaten that much food in one sitting in years. The rest of the week was spent eating very strictly!

After we ate we checked into our hotel room next door at the Bavarian Inn. We were driving by the front sign when my sister noticed what the sign said.

We thought it was kind of funny that my Mom's name was on the sign and the first one too! It didn't take us long to get settled into our room and the first thing we did is go down to the game room. We ended up winning almost 3,000 tickets between all of us and got some great prizes for the girls and for Crystal's nephew. Then we hit the pool! Somehow, we got the entire thing to ourselves, which was fantastic. Forest swam around like a little kid (he never learned how to swim properly), which made me smile. We had fun shopping around the next day, got some fudge, went to the Käse Haus (cheese house) and the Bavarian Inn bakery.

On the way home it started to snow and we got back to Dearborn just in time before it got really bad. We talked about building a snowman but I don't think either of us felt like getting that cold! Later in the week the snow melted and flooded my parent's backyard. That night it got very cold, which froze over the backyard. We had so much fun skating around and trying not to fall on our bums.


We had a very good trip, but it is good to be back home too. I miss my family quite a bit but I'm glad I have another family to come home to. Things are pretty much back to normal for us, I'll post about the things going on the last week another time.