How to meet and make friends with the neighbors

1. Lose a branch from one of the two trees in your yard during a storm.
2. Clean up the branch and put it out for trash day before any of your neighbors even realize that the branch fell.  (If trash day conveniently happens to be the next day, this will be extremely easy!)
3. Lose another branch from the same tree during another storm so that about half of your tree is gone.  Poor sad tree:(
4. Attempt to clean up the branch, but realize you don't own the right tools for the job at the same time your neighbor crosses the street  to help you carrying his chainsaw and an extension cord.
5. Do not repeat too often or your neighbors may get annoyed that you won't buy your own tools.  

But for now, I'm really enjoying meeting the neighbors.  The neighbors on either side of us and across the street are awesome people who all have a dog (or dogs) and a kid (or kids).  We'll know where to go when we need advice for either!

At the start of summer

Well, summer is officially here!  And even though I'm teaching summer school, it's so nice to have a bit of a break.  The students in summer school always work really hard because they know that when they finish the class they're working on they don't have to come to summer school anymore.  We're not even a week in and I already have three students finished!

Other than teaching summer school, I've been working around the house.  We still have some stuff to move over from the apartment, but we should get that taken care of in the next week or two.  Right now, we're just having fun figuring out where everything should go.  We're also working our way through redoing the flowerbeds that the previous owners covered with a layer of plastic and then three to four layers of river rocks.  In order to be able to plant anything, we have to get rid of the plastic and rocks first, which is about as much fun as it sounds like it is to move...

I'm also working on planning our honeymoon.  At this point, we're thinking of flying into Boston and spending a day or two there.  Then we'll either rent a car and drive or take the train up to Portland, Maine.  We'll hang out there for a few days, traveling a little south to see some of the smaller towns (including Kennebunkport which I'm really excited to see!) and then head north towards Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.  On the list of things to do while in Maine:  see as many lighthouses as possible, see lobster, try lobster (neither Andy or I has ever had it), go whale/seal/puffin watching, go on a boat, and I'm sure there are some other things that I'm missing.  Anyway, if anyone's been to Boston/Maine I would love some suggestions of things to do/places to go.

On a completely different note, has anyone ever been to When Eddie Met Salad?  I went today for the first time and it was AMAZING!  I had the Sante Fe chicken wrap, which is not something I would normally get but it was so good.  I can't wait to go back and try some of the other food there.  Just thought I'd mention it in case any of you have been passing it by like I had until today.

Memorial Day weekend projects

So we've moved into our house and completed a bunch of projects already.  I know that I haven't shared pictures of the house (which I should be doing later this week!) but I do have pictures of our projects!

Project 1 - Moving a HUGE entertainment center we bought off of Craigslist.  

I enlisted the help of my mother, sister, and husband to make this happen because there was no way that I could do it on my own.  It was a great buy because it's made by Bombay Company and the whole thing is solid wood.  It's a beautiful cherry color that will look great when we get all of the shelves filled and when Andrew gets to eventually buy his bigger and better TV.

Project 2 - Priming the walls and ceiling of the garage.

Our garage has drywall on the walls and ceiling, but didn't have any kind of primer or paint on it, so we decided that we wanted to put a coat of primer on it to help seal it and keep out any moisture.  Besides, what doesn't look better with a good coat of white paint or primer?

Before                                              After

Project 3 - Brightening up the front porch with our kissing Dutch people and a hanging flowerpot.
Back when we were still looking at houses, I found cement kissing Dutch people on Craigslist, bought them, and repainted them so that we could put them somewhere in front of our new house, whenever we managed to get one.  So this weekend, we were finally able to put them out on the front porch and they look great!  We added a cute purple hanging flowerpot that we bought at Meijer and some flowers that we planted this afternoon and the porch looks much brighter and happier than it did this morning!

Before

After

Project 4 - Redoing the flower bed by the light post.
Our last project this weekend was redoing one of the flower beds.  First we removed the ugly edging the former owners had.  They we changed the shape from a square to a circle to make it easier to mow around.  We used some of the small river rock that is in most of the other flower beds as a new edging and added some flowers!  I think it looks so much better!

Before                                               After

Packing it in

We have a closing date for the house!  In less than a week we will be closing and taking possession of our first house, which means we get to start packing this weekend.  Have I mentioned I LOVE packing???  I think it's something to do with my want to be organized, even though I'm totally not.  The thought of taking our possessions and packing them up neatly into boxes really appeals to me, especially because it'll give us a chance to reassess what we actually need and to think about where everything will go in the new house.

Now if only I could get my hands on some free boxes...

Another update on house #4

We heard back about the appraisal on the house and it was perfect!   That means we only have one more hoop to jump through until we own our house - getting approved for the loan.  Hopefully this won't be a problem because we're already pre-approved for much more than the loan amount we need.  If all goes well, we'll be closing on our house on May 13th!  Yay!

An update on house #4

We got a text from our realtor tonight telling us:

1. The house has been appraised by the bank.
2. The appraisal hasn't been filed yet.
3. We should hear about the appraisal (hopefully) by Friday!
4. The person who appraised this house was not the same person who appraised house #3.  If you remember, the appraisal for house #3 was $20,000 below what we had agreed to pay, which was what screwed up everything with house #3.  We're praying that the same thing doesn't happen with house #4.  We'd love it if you'd  pray about it too!

An Update on Our House

We have a signed contract. We had the inspection. The sellers fixed the few issues we found during the inspection. And then we hit a roadblock...

The bank sent out someone to appraise the property's value to figure out how much they were willing to loan to someone buying that house. They appraised the house for twenty thousand dollars less than the price we have on the contract with the sellers.

If the sellers were willing to accept that price, it would be great for us because we would get to pay twenty thousand dollars less, but the sellers won't agree to that price. And we can't magically come up with that much money. So the only step we were able to take was to appeal the appraisal.

We appealed the appraisal over a week ago and we're still waiting to hear back from the bank. But we've heard from our relator that he has never heard of an appraisal being overturned. We're still hopeful because we LOVE that house, but we're also looking at other houses. At this point, we haven't found a house that we like as much as our house (or I suppose I should say our "almost" house?) so we're more than a little frustrated.

I even had a dream about looking at houses and accidentally standing our relator up for an appointment that he'd scheduled, which (for the record) didn't actually happen. We're going to look at four more houses tomorrow night, two of which we've already seen and are possible back-up options if we aren't able to get our house. We'll have to see what happens.

Look what we just bought for our new house

That's right. Kissing Dutch people! Those of you that were at our wedding know that we had kissing Dutch people as our cake topper since we met in Holland, Michigan. So it only seems appropriate that we would have some kissing Dutch people for our yard as well.

They will definitely be getting a fresh coat of paint as well as some personalized touches (the boy will be blond and the girl will be brunette), so they should be much cuter when they actually reside in our yard. I will definitely take a picture once I have them repainted to show you!

Our house!!!

We have had quite the adventure in buying our first home.

House #1

We started with a fixer upper that Andrew and I both really liked that was a short sale. We put in an offer that would have been the seller's back-up offer if they had actually accepted it. Instead, they chose not to accept our offer, deciding that if the first offer didn't work out they would just go into foreclosure...

House #2

When the offer on house #1 wasn't accepted, we looked at several other houses and eventually found a house that we really liked in a neighborhood we really liked as well. The house was more cookie cutter than we wanted and the yard was a little smaller than we wanted, but we were willing to compromise on those things for the location, the square footage, and the fact that we wouldn't have to do much to the house other than painting. We thought the seller was asking too much for the house given the market, so we made a low offer, expecting them to give us a counteroffer so we could meet somewhere in the middle. The seller refused to counteroffer because he thinks that the house is worth the list price. (We actually found out that the seller had turned down an offer that was $2,000 below their list price last year. So we knew there was no working with this guy.)

House #3 (aka the house we actually bought!!!)

When our offer on house #2 wasn't accepted, we looked at even more houses and ended up looking at a house that is literally across the street from house #2. We knew we loved the location and the neighborhood, but thought that this house was more expensive than we wanted. We thought we'd just look at it to see what we could get if we were to go to the top end of our budget. However, once we walked into this house, we saw how much more we would be getting for our money. The house is gorgeous!!! It is literally our dream house and big enough that we will never have to move unless we choose to.

It has great curb appeal, a fenced backyard with a swing set and deck that look out on a field, a family room with a gas fireplace, a beautiful kitchen, a huge loft at the top of the stairs, a big master bedroom, a gorgeous master bathroom with two sinks and a garden tub (which is a requirement since i've gotten used to the one in my apartment), the most amazing closet i've ever seen in my life, and the excitement continues from there!

There is SO much more to tell you about our house, but you'll have to wait until i have the keys in my hand to see the pictures because i don't want anything to go wrong with this one!