We Moved!

I know it's been over 3 weeks since my last post.... (sorry Gramma). I've got loads of pictures and stories to share. But little time right now to do it. I'll get to it, slowly.

In the mean time I thought I'd share our big news, for those you don't already know. Big news. Like 2,400 sq ft news. Yes - we FINALLY closed on our house - PRAISE GOD!  After 4 hours in the lawyers' office, we finally got the keys. And the debt ;-)  All 2 days before leaving on vacation. Ahh!

The news gets better. We got one of our two extension fees back - which almost paid for our new dishwasher. Which, btw, is awesome, quiet, doesn't leak or leave weird residue on the dishes. YAY!

And better... the a/c... after some minor repairs and cleaning, it works awesome. Far better than I'd hoped. That's saying alot coming from a pregnant momma in southern Texas heat ;-)

And better... the dryer works finally!  Our old dryer (which isn't even 5 years old yet!) stopped working right when we moved. We hoped it was the rental house... the vent was 20 feet long, went straight up thru the roof, and was way too small in diameter. But only moving would tell if our dryer was broken of if the rental house was the cause of needing to run 3-4 cycles everytime we dried clothes.... it was the rental house! The dryer works great now!!

And better... the toilets?? They ALL flush!! In the rental, we had 2 toilets. One was often stuck running or the lever would fall off. The other, which got used more often, didn't flush well. You had to hold it down for 10-15 seconds and say a little prayer that everything would go down. Usually it didn't. So after a year of that, I'm thrilled to have toilets that flush!

And better.... closing costs were less than we'd planned for, so we hired people to paint for us while we were on vacation. I was nervous about my color choices. having to pick colors for an entire house, all in one day, without seeing the rooms one by one. But I love them!

And better.... the flooring we ordered ended up on backorder. Till mid July. We learned this while on vacation. We were told a different color in that same style/price was available right away. But we weren't about to ok something we didn't see over the phone. So after vacation, we went to the flooring store. We liked the new stuff. But when the order was called in, we learned it was also now on backorder! The flooring store employee worked some magic though. She insisted that the manufacturer offer us the next step up in product for the same price as what we'd wanted. And they agreed! So we got better quality stuff, with higher warranty, in a style we actually like more, all for the same cost. Yay! And it looks awesome. We got laminate downstairs and carpet on the steps & upstairs. No more icky, cigarette smelling, stain covered old carpet. YAY!!

I could go on and on about all the great things about this house. There's more cabinet space than I know what to do with. There's no fireplace for barking doves to live in. There's no backing-up of water in our sinks. The pantry is huge. I could get lost in the master bedroom closet - seriously, we've considered building a wall and making part of it an office! There's space for the kids to run around in. There's tons of windows for lots of natural light. There's no bugs - no roaches, no bettles, no worms crawling up from under the toilet... Granted the garage has been held ransom by biting ants... but that can be taken care of. At least it's not roaches! And at least it's a 2 car garage - plenty of room for a workshop for Jacob, space for his 4-wheeler and still space for a vehicle.

I could go on an on about how thankful to God I am for this house! It really is a blessing from Him and maybe one day we'll learn why we had so much difficulty getting the house... though we've learned that our experience with HUD is pretty typical, if not speedy.

I know some of you want to see pics. But I haven't taken many. I'll share a few now and more when we settle in more.

Here's a pic of the laminate & carpet we chose. Not a great pic, even worse looking at it thru a computer monitor. But in person, we love it!

Here's the backside of the staircase. On the other side is the living room. To the left of this photo is the kitchen. To the back, is the deck & sliding glass doors. This is our play area - the kids love the space, and how easy it is to push, pull and ride on their toys with the hard floors!

And I love the artwork they made (with help).

Here's a closer look - they're all animals made from hand & foot prints.

(you should be able to click on the photo to enlarge it)

There's an elephant, a fish, butterfly, cow, horse & bee.

And how's Titus transitioning??

Well... he still has no home. We're still figuring that out.

In the mean time, he's the center of attention....

.... in our kitchen.

I didn't get a very good pic to show you the wall color... you can see a tid bit above the spice rack. It's green. And gorgeous - I love it!

About the only other photo I've taken of the house so far is of the stray dog living under our deck...

She only comes out when I feed her. Yes, you heard right. This anti-dog person feeds the stray dog living under our deck... Why???

Because of them. Can you tell what it is?? I had to hold the camera up under the deck and this was the best photo I got. There's 5 newborn puppies in there. They look to be only a week old. Probably born the same time we were moving in... I may not be a dog lover, but that momma dog is a mommy none-the-less. So I'm doing what I can to protect her family until the puppies are old enough to come out. Then we'll try to find them homes. Do you want a puppy??? :)

Ok, I wrote a novel. I want to thank those of you who've been praying for our home. God answers prayer and we're so glad He chose to give us this house. It's truly a blessing. There's still a ton of boxes to unpack and things to do... like most rooms upstairs have no lights... but it's slowly getting done and we're thanking God daily for this house!