Changes

Even though we moved just 3.6 miles, we not only changed wards, we changed stakes. We are back in the Austin Oak Hills Stake again, in the Sunset Valley ward.

While we are excited about our new ward and everyone we've met so far has been very friendly and welcoming, one of the saddest things about our move is leaving our primary classes. I have really gotten attached to those kiddos and will miss them greatly. I hope to see them around the building sometimes!

Cleanliness is next to.....

"You know how you throw your jacket on a chair at the end of the day? Well, like that, except instead of a chair, it's a pile of garbage. And instead of a jacket, its a pile of garbage. And instead of the end of the day, it's the end of time, and garbage is all that has survived!"

"I couldn't sleep knowing that just outside my bedroom is our living room and just outside our living room is that hallway and immediately adjacent to that hallway is this!"

Apparently, the previous owner of our new home never met dirt she didn't like. And has no idea where the "cleaning" aisle is at HEB.

We have moved everything into the new house (Thank you Adam, Mandy, Josiah, and Parker!) but haven't unpacked a single thing because it's so filthy. I mean, we have stuff piled on top of furniture so we don't have to set it on the ground. And nothing touches the walls. Because every. single. surface. of that place will have to be scoured before I'm convinced I won't contract something from it. Some of it is so far gone, it'll be easier to replace/paint over than try to get clean. We'll be painting every wall, door, and piece of molding. Awesome.

Today, I decided to start with the master bathroom. I figured I would want to get clean and couldn't do that in that bathroom. It seriously reminded me of the bathrooms at Camp Liahona (YW girl's camp from a decade ago. Yuck).

First, I went to HEB and wiped out their cleaning supply section. Seriously, I grabbed about 10 different products because I wasn't sure which one would be up to the task. Mandy graciously came over to help me and we hit that bathroom hard for 2.5 hours. Ya, you read that right. And while it looks better, it's still not up to Erika/Mandy standards.

The shower had pink mold growing all over it. I think I may get sick just from inhaling mold as I cleaned. I cleaned every inch of the shower three times, with three different products.

While it looks amazingly better before, none of these were able to get rid of ALL the soapy scum film on the glass. Any other suggestions?

The floors, the tub, the baseboards, the doors, the mirror, the sink and counter, and the cabinets are all infinitely cleaner now.

One room down, 11 to go. Oh my.

Bonus points if you can identify the two quotes I threw out at the beginning!  

New fridge!

Check out these three beasts (ok, Mandy's a pretty beast). They, and Hans, went and picked up our new fridge at Best Buy and brought it home in Abinadi's truck. Go team! It looks great and I'm so relieved to have a fridge.

Isn't it purdy? We got a steal of a deal on it because it was an open item. I had to pick between the French door style fridge or having in-door water/ice. I'm really sick of bending over to reach the fruit/veggie drawers in our current fridge, so the French doors seemed like the way to go. Hans has been all for this one since we saw it because it looks cool. It's a GE profile and I hear those are well (and we have a good warranty) so here's to hoping it's a good one!

One more!!

Man, I'm on a blogging spree today.

In all the house craziness, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another major event that happened this weekend: Our very good friends, Miss Molly Lewis and Mr. Tom Wright FINALLY got engaged!!

After three years of dating and not dating, a mission in Norway, a study abroad in Cairo, and plenty of back and forth (and even more drama), these two crazy kids are finally going to tie the knot. We are SO HAPPY for you guys and wish you the best life together. Love y'all!!

A rough video tour

Hans forgot the camera had video capabilities until he was upstairs in the back bedroom. So the tour's kinda backwards, but you get the idea.

Have I mentioned yet that Lori, our realtor, is HUGELY pregnant? I don't know how she's doing all of this while about to pop. I mean, literally! She's due Friday! What a rock star.

House pictures

Thought I forgot, huh? Here's the good stuff.

House is in South Austin, off Slaughter and Westgate. Yes, it's the street over from Adam and Mandy Krutsinger. We are very excited about that.

It's two stories, three side stone, living, dining, kitchen, breakfast, four bed, two and a half bath.

We really liked that it had trees. Many houses we looked at don't, but this has three good ones in front and several in back.

Dining room:

 
 Downstairs has no carpet, which we love. No more accidents to clean up after our little ones.
 Living room:

Hans is super excited about mounting our tv over the fire place.
Kitchen:

It's a good size, but needs some upgrading. That's our first big project.
Master bedroom:

Sadly, the giant art fan did not convey.
Master bath

The only really sucky part about the house is how bad the closet is. The master closet makes me weep. That'll be interesting...

Bedroom #1:

This will be our guest room. Please come visit!
Bedroom #2:

Bedroom #3

While technically the fourth bedroom in the house, this bedroom is really large and has glass french doors. The former owner used it as a gameroom and I think we'll use it as an office until we have kids.

Hans took some video of the house too... I'll see if I can dig it up and post it.

So you might be wondering...

Hans and Erika bought a house? Where did that come from?

Yes. We did. And now that we're closed, we're ready to tell you all about it. Until the keys were in our hands, we were too nervous that something was going to fall through. So here's the relevant facts.

We had planned on taking the next year or so to save up money and have a nice little down payment. But we still like looking at houses, so we'd occasionally stop in to open houses and model homes. One day, way at the beginning of April, we were looking at some new construction homes just down the street from our apartments. While chatting with the sales woman, she asked why we weren't planning to buy until next year. She said we really should cash in on the Obama money while still available.

It got us thinking. Not only was Obama handing out $8k (which would totally cover our down payment...) but the interest rates lately are stupid low. We can't see them getting lower any time soon, and certainly not this time next year. Hans' parents agreed with this and said they would front us the money for our down payment until our Obama check arrives.

We agreed to meet with a realtor, Lori, just to see what was out there. If we found something we loved, we'd get it. If not, we'd walk away and stick to our original plan. This was all around the beginning of April. Over the next three weeks, Lori showed us so many houses we lost track. Based on the stack of MLS sheets on my desk, I estimate it was in the 80-100 range.

It was funny how our wants/priorities changed through out the hunt. We originally thought we wouldn't mind moving to Buda for the cheaper home prices. But after driving out there, we realized just how far it is and how none of our friends (I'm looking at you, Andrew/Abinadi/Tom) would come out to see us. Even though it wasn't even on our radar at first, we quickly decided we wanted to be in the Bowie school zone. Not that we expect to be in this house long enough to see our yet-to-be-even-considered children attend high school. It was more thinking about re-sale value. We noticed that two houses we looked at that were the exact same floor plan, same upgrades, same condition, etc. but in separate school zones (One Bowie, One Akins) had a $20k price difference between them. Better schools = better house value.

We ended up making four offers, on three houses. The first house was not worth nearly what they were asking and they weren't willing to budge. I'm now really relieved we didn't get that one because that was in the early stages of the hunt, back when Akins didn't look so bad...

The second house had the best location and a great floorplan. Seriously, killer location. But it was older and didn't look like anything had been updated, ever. We'd probably have had to gut the kitchen and redo. And the price didn't reflect that. Her house had been on the market since October, and she wasn't budging on her price. We decided to sweat her out until the end of April, figuring that as the Obama tax credit neared it's deadline, buyers might get more willing to negotiate.

In the mean time, we found a third house. We love the floor plan and the location. While not *quite* as good as the second house's location, still stellar. We put in a low ball offer, expecting to have to negotiate up to the where we really wanted to be. I guess she was desperate, because she took it straight out. Now counter offer, no nothing.

Incidentally, House #3 accepted our offer about an hour before House #2 caved and cam back and accepted our offer. That's what she gets for waiting. I check the MLS periodically to see if it's sold - it still hasn't. Suck-ah!

Even though we went under contract on our house at the end of April, we couldn't close until today. 1) we wanted the latest closing date possible because our lease isn't up at our apartment until Nov. 1 and paying rent AND mortgage is gonna suck. and 2) they needed a certain amount of pay stubs and other paper work that took us FOREVER to get together.

And that's it, so far. We were able to lock in a killer rate of 4.875%, the house appraised for more than what we bought it for, and the inspection turned up virtually nothing wrong with the house. I feel like I signed my life away today at the title office, which was scary, but the house is ours!! No more moving every nine months. No more not being able to paint walls or hang stuff because of renters' policies. No more listening to the guy upstairs entertain his lady friend at 2 a.m. A yard to let the dogs out in! A garage to park our cars!! A big kitchen to cook in! I'm excited - our first home.