We finally decided to buy a playset. We got it the Friday before Memorial Day, which was good, as it gave me a little more time to work on it. I was worried putting it together would be tough, but it actually ended up being pretty easy and didn’t take quite as long as I was thinking.
We were really looking forward to doing some gardening this year, as we have our own house now and can do what we want. The house came with three garden boxes, and we decided to buy a few more. We were going to get another three, making an even six, but Walmart only had two of the ones we want, so we’ll have to get the third on later.
And then my parents had extra raspberries they didn’t want, so we took some and transplanted them around the edge of our fence. Probably won’t get any raspberries until next year, but some of them are already starting to grow leaves, so that’s a good sign.
The great thing about owning our own home this year is we got to put up Christmas lights! We didn’t do much, just the front roof line, but it was better then nothing. Eventually I want the entire roofline, trees, maybe some inflatable decorations, etc.
A couple weekends ago we went to Harvest Fest, where the kids played on inflatable toys, won some prizes playing games, and we looked around some booths. We also finally planted a tree that we’ve had since we’ve moved in. We were waiting for it to start cooling down somewhat and that’s finally happened.
So yes, we are now homeowners (as of one week ago)! Things kind of went a little faster then what we had anticipated, but that’s a good thing. Our original close date was July 18th or so. We told our bank that we would like to close sooner if possible, which the sellers wanted as well.
So the loan ended up being processed a lot faster then we had thought. They were basically done July 5th, so at that point we told the sellers as soon as they could move out, we could close. They wanted a week to move out, they originally told us. That would have put a close date of July 12th, which I didn’t really want to do, since it was just before Lucas’ birthday and didn’t want to disrupt that. So we decided to set a date of July 17th.
Well they ended up moving out in just a day or two, so our realtor contacted us on July 9th, letting us know they were out. So we talked about it and decided why wait, so we set a close date of July 10th. By 5 that evening we had closed and were given our house keys, and then proceeded to start moving some stuff over that night.
Thus began a very long couple of days, as we moved as much as we could on our own Thursday and Friday, then we had family and friends come help us move most of the rest Friday night. Saturday my parents and grandparents came back and helped us install a wood floor in my office, since they had experience from just doing that in my dad’s office. I wasn’t sure we were going to get it all done but we got the majority of it done Saturday, which it made my office look so much better, more then I thought it would.
So that was our first major project, along with installing floorboards in my office. My parents came back Monday and we finished installing the floor in my closet. So my office now just needs trim around the door and closet, as well as a closet door installed, which we plan to do soon. Lucas decided to have his own room downstairs, instead of sharing with Will, and his room needs a few things finished as well, which we’ll get to at some point.
So far though we have loved the new place. We’ve had at least 5 neighbors come over and say hello and some have brought us cookies, which we never had anyone at our old place do that. Our bishop lives next door and as some younger kids, which has been great, as Lucas and McKinley have already made friends. So it seems to be a really great neighborhood. Right now we still have boxes everywhere, but hopefully at some point we’ll get things put away and I’ll take some pictures.
So still not 100% official but we are getting close to owning our own home. The bank has processed everything and came back to us on the 5th asking when we wanted to close. The current owners couldn’t close before this Friday but we didn’t want to move right before/on Lucas’ birthday, so we set the close date on July 17th. Pretty exciting but until we close and we officially become owners, I’m still trying not to get too excited (much to Kryssi’s annoyance).
So we’ve been looking at houses over the past month or so. We made an offer on one we really liked, but unfortunately, we got out bid on that one. Well we found another one in the same neighborhood and after some back and forth with the seller, we had an accepted offer.
So nothing is 100% official yet and won’t be until we close, but we just heard back today that the appraisal came in and everything looked good there, so the last step is submitting everything, which our bank said should take about a week. After that, assuming nothing else comes up, we can close at any point.
So I was going to wait until we actually closed to tell people, just in case it didn’t work out, but Kryssi’s had a hard time keeping it a secret, so I think most people at this point know. So just keep your fingers crossed that everything works out and in the meantime, check out some pictures of our (hopefully) new place.
