Even More Excitement!

Well, it's official! We put in an offer on a beautiful house that I love! But I have to start from the beginning :-)

Evan and Robert got here on Friday morning at 8am. Daniel and I both had class, so they slept in Daniel's room until 11am. I met them over at Newman and we watched Daniel perform. He did so great! He has made a lot of improvement. And I could tell he was really excited to have his dad and brother here to see him. We had lunch together and discussed the plan for the weekend. I was kind of discouraged because it seemed like Robert wasn't listening to us. He thought the houses were all really far from campus (which they are) but we tried to tell him that there aren't any within our price range any closer. It didn't really matter in the end. On Saturday we went to 6 houses in Ruby Hill which is west of campus. It's a largely hispanic neighborhood, with really nice houses right in our price range. A lot of them are flips so pretty much every house we looked at was remodeled, unoccupied, and ready to move in. At the end of the day we had 2 that we really liked. The last house we looked at I really loved and was ready to move in right then. Everyone else loved it too. It had a garage big enough for 3 cars, a huge backyard perfect for picnics and BBQs, and a beautiful kitchen and master suite. The problem is that there is a room right in the middle of the house with no windows. Somebody built an addition onto the back of the house for the master suite and that blocked off that room so it had no windows. The other house was great, but the bathrooms were pretty small and it was on a somewhat busy street. And there was a food bank/clothing bank just down the street so we were a little concerned about that.

On Sunday I had my choir performance at an Episcopalian church in the morning. That was quite an experience. I've never been to an Episcopalian church and it was very Catholic-esque. Lots of ceremony and processional and recitations and stuff. They even "chanted" a bible verse where the congregation responded. It was a loooooong sermon. I almost fell asleep to be honest. And then we finally sang. They were doing communion and stuff which was extremely distracting. I seriously couldn't even focus on the director. Actually the whole service was distracting. There were these people that walked down the aisle carrying a big cross and holding up the bible. It was interesting and neat to see a different kind of worship. The essence was the same, though. I felt bad for the Jewish girl sitting next to me. She didn't recite anything, but she still had to sing our songs about Jesus and stuff. She told me she had never been to a church service before.

So after church we looked at 6 more houses. Most of them were too expensive or really trashed. These were all East of campus which was a much nicer neighborhood. Mostly white and more expensive houses. But also more expensive. The last house we looked at was a flip and it was $190K. It was being sold by the owner who bought it to remodel it and resell it. He was there and told us a little bit about the house. It was a nice layout. Three bedrooms upstairs and one bath. The kitchen, dining room, and living room also upstairs. Then there's a basement with another living room, a small tiled room (probably supposed to be the laundry room) and then the master suite with a HUGE closet, nice bathroom and big shower, and dimmable lights. Evan liked that. It really was a beautiful house and perfect for what we needed. One bedroom was pretty small, but the perfect size for a study room. The basement could be the TV room while we can keep the upstairs living room for formal entertaining. The backyard has lots of grass and a fenced in dog run for our future doggie Daisy. The only thing I hate is that there's no garage. Only space for one car in the (uncovered) driveway and then everyone else has to park on the street. But besides that, it was perfect. We got Hope and took her back to our top 3 to get her opinion. Then we went out to dinner to seriously discuss it. In the end, we decided the location and lack of a room with no windows made that house beat out the other. And we are all happy with that decision. So in a couple hours Robert is going to submit our offer and we'll just wait to hear back. He's asking for closing in 30-45 days so if the offer is accepted, we can move in at the end of June! I am beyond excited. Thrilled! I want to get in there and start painting and moving in furniture and cooking and everything. The neighborhood is soo much nicer. Two blocks from a park, and one street over has houses that are close to $300K. So it's a good investment.

It was such a long weekend. It was a lot of work and a lot of emotion. I really loved that other house, but really any of the three would have been great. Now it's just wait and see if the seller will accept our offer. Evan will be here until Saturday. It's so fun having him here, he always makes me smile. Robert will be here longer than that. I'm not really sure exactly how long. Probably after the offer goes through and the inspection and everything. I love having family here :-)

Oh, and I got my chemistry midterm back: 87%! The average was only 75%! I did the best on this last round of midterms than I have in a long time. Strange considering I was more focused on my grandparents being here, and house-hunting, etc. But I guess that's how it goes. My last biology lab was today, and after next week it's just finals. I'm so excited for this summer. It's going to be awesome.