Things that are going on

I was looking back at my blog yesterday and realized that aside from overheards, I haven't posted anything much at all for a while. So it is time for an update!

Back in April, we started looking at possibly buying a house. We don't have a lease where we live, exactly. My parents rent this place and sub-lease us the basement apartment so we can leave whenever but they have another year on the lease. The plan had been is look casually for awhile and get serious about the search a little after Christmas. This would have put us a little closer to the end of the lease and allowed us some time to save a little more money for closing and down payments and things. We started looking and right away found a house that we really liked, in our price range. We called the realtor and started the process of putting in an offer. Apparently, right before we called someone else called and put in a higher, cash, offer on the house. We decided we were too early in the process to get into a bidding war and passed on it.

We kept looking and saw several houses that were so not right. I found one that looked good. It was listed for 109k and had 1500 sq ft. We looked at it and decided that we really liked it. Our realtor told us that if we wanted it, we needed to move on it because he had 2 appointments over the weekend to see it as well. We opted to put in an offer that afternoon and he said he would call the next day with details about signing the contract. They ended up accepting our offer of 106k. The next day (Friday of Memorial Day weekend), he called and said that something happened with the house they were supposed to be buying (apparently, the woman couldn't afford it so she was selling it but once she had an offer, she quit paying her mortgage meaning she couldn't get a loan to move so they couldn't move so we couldn't move). They ended up, despite some finagling with extended closing dates and things, deciding to pull the house off the market completely. We were pretty bummed but kept looking, at least sort of.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided we should start looking in earnest again and looked at another bunch of houses. We looked at one that the neighborhood was a little dicey. The house was decent enough but the surrounding houses were not great. We also looked at an older one near us that the porch was falling off of and everything inside was scuffed and scraped and creaky. Then we looked at a house near the pool. It was listed at 114k had 1063 sq ft with a decent backyard and an attached garage. As soon as we walked inside, I was fairly sure I wanted the house. It has 3 bedrooms and a kitchen, dining room, living room combo. It is 2 blocks from the pool, a park and the schools the kids will go to when they are older. It is .2 miles closer to the school they go to now. After haggling for what seemed liked the whole night, we got them down to 107k. We got a signed contract the next day. We've met with the bank lady to sign things and we have the inspection Weds at 4. Assuming the inspection goes well and the house appraises out ok (it should but you never know), we will close on July 30th. The plan is to do the painting (the house is a nice neutral color but to get the kids excited about the move away from Nonni and the only house either one has ever known, we promised they could paint their bedrooms) and some cleaning that weekend and start moving over the next week. RF has vacation the second week of August so anything not done by then will get finished up that week.

The long term plan is convert the garage into a family room, although I intend to use it as such right away. The kids can just deal with the concrete floor and avoid the door until we can take it out and add a real floor with carpet. Eventually, we want to move the door to the back yard over and add a second bathroom, at least a half bath, anyway.

That is the big news but other news is that we are out of school for the summer and spending lots of time hanging out at the pool. Wild Freak is doing College for Kids last week and this, which is cutting into our pool time but he is having fun with it. He is doing Lights, Camera, Action. So far, they have done an infomercial and a talk show. MF got into WF's school (not that siblings generally get separated but it can happen) We requested a different teacher for her than WF had. His teacher was nice enough but I think that MF needs a more consistent structure. We'll find out at registration who she gets so we are excited for that. DSD is also visiting this summer. She is staying with MIL during the week and visits us on Sunday and Monday when RF is off. Things are a little better than summers past, but I think it has as much to do with limited contact as anything else. She goes home in about 10 days. I've learned how to knit as well this summer. I made a skinny scarf for MF and I've started a scarf for WF. It is supposed to be ribbed, but I think I've done something wrong, since it has no pattern to it at all.