Too much has happened since I last posted on here. I haven't blogged about our Easter trip to St George, or our fabulous trip to Disneyland! Ah! I guess I'm not going to be as good at this blog thing as I hoped to be. Why am I always so terrible at journaling?? Oh well.
I did want to blog about some super exciting news though. I'm pretty sure everyone who reads my blog already knows about it, but I thought I'd officially blog about it anyway! We are officially home owners!!! We NEVER expected to find the home we wanted so soon after moving in with Marc's parents. So far we've only been with them for 3 months! And our goal wasn't even to have a house until December (I told Marc I wanted to celebrate Christmas at our new home). But when we found out about this home, we seriously couldn't pass it up.
When we were in California (the first week of April) my friend Jill (Sumsion) Olsen wrote me on Facebook and told me that her sister just listed their home for sale on KSL. She told me a little bit about it and gave me the URL so I could look it up online. As soon as I saw the first picture (we were in our hotel in Cali) I said to Marc, "Come look at the pictures of our future home. This house will be ours!" After I looked up the pictures I called Jill's sister (Melissa Martinez) and asked when would be a good time to come see it. We got home from Disneyland on Saturday and went over the next day to check it out. Side note: when I had gotten off the phone with Melissa I was literally shaking I was so excited. My voice was all cracky too when I was talking to her... I'm sure she thought I was such a spaz! I was determined that this cute house was going to be mine! (Oh and Marc's... he keeps on having to remind me that it's "Our" home :) ).
After we saw the house on Sunday and had a good converstaion with the Martinez's we went home and discussed finances and if it really was a possibility. Seeing as how we had only lived with the Hansen's for 2 months at the time, we didn't have as much saved up as planned. After really punching numbers and figuring out how much we would need for a down payment and our monthly mortgage we figured out it truly was a possibility! I literally cried and cried. Ha, I'm such a nerd, I know! And another side note: Thank goodness for great tax returns and for paying tithing... serioulsy no joke, I feel like we were blessed because of it!!
The next day we spoke with our lender, who happens to be the dad of the family I nannied for for four years. He was super helpful and it was nice knowing and trusting someone through the whole process. Withtin 2 days we gave the Martinez's our offer and we had expected to wait a couple of days to hear back from them. To our surprise, they accepted it right away, like literally we were sitting down talking with them and they said it aounded great! We made minor adjustments for the both of us (neither of us used a real estate agent, which I highly recommened!) and we signed the first set of papers that night. Within the next couple of weeks our paperwork was in, the home had been appraised and we were ready to close! Honestly, I don't think the process could have gone any smoother. It was a stressful month making sure everything went through and was accepted, but everything worked out as best as it could.
I don't doubt that buying this house was a blessing from Heavenly Father! Things could not have gone smoother or could have been more perfect. The home is within minutes of my parent's house (ps, it's in Springville), a park, a tennis court, the city library, and so many of my friends. I told Marc since the day I married him I wanted our first home to be a cozy, cute, red-brick home with a cute yard, and it's just that! It was built in the 1950's and has been totally updated. The great thing about it too though is that there are a few more updates that need to be made, but we'll get to choose how to do them. I'm also in love with the yard. It's quaint and cute and has been taken really good care of. It has a deck (which eventually needs to be replaced, but is perfect for now), and a firepit and four graden boxes. It was extremely conveinient that we knew the sellers and could ask them questions about the ward and neighbors and how much utilities were, etc. It was nice because we could trust them and I knew that if Melissa was anything like Jill I knew she would be a clean and emmaculate person :)... Trust me, I lived with Jill!
We are beyond happy to own a home and feel so blessed how things turned out. We move in on June 22nd and I literally can't wait. My head hasn't stopped spinning for a second with ideas on how to decorate it! Marc tells me that decorating our home is going to be my most expenxive hobby yet! Haha. Truth is though, I'm going to have to be SUPER patient with all the things I want for it because we don't exactly have the money right now... maybe it has to do with the fact that we just bought a home! Anyway, we do want to put some shutters up on the outside of it, but we can't decide what colors to do. Marc played around in photoshop to see some different variations. Which do you like the best?
I cannot wait to make memories and actually spend holidays at the same place for years to come!
