We are moving!

No this is not a joke but man we feel like it's happened so fast, let me see if I can give you an idea of what has happened in the last few weeks.
Jan 5th --We sent an e-mail to a friend of ours who is a realtor, Dan Paskett, and asked him to keep an eye out for us for a home and we gave him 8 criteria.  basement (preferably not finished or half finished)

9 foot ceilings

No flood zone (like Nibley)

around a 1/3 of an acre 

Main floor around 1500 square feet

At least three bedrooms finished

at least 2 bathrooms

the house facing west or south

Added bonus but would really like:

a walk out basement

wrap around porch

We'll he e-mailed us back and said his neighbor was selling their home and they were asking $275 and it had all our criteria except the bonus features.  We told him that was more then we could afford right now but let us know if he sees anything else.  

Jan 6th he told us of another home that just lowered their home price to $219 and it is a really nice home with all our criteria as well.  So I scheduled to see the home on Jan 13

Jan 13th--I went by myself to see the Smithfield home.  Devin said if I loved it then he would come and see if with me.  So I did love it.  I took a bunch of pictures brought them home to show him.  As I was driving home I started crying because I didn't know how all of it would work out but I felt like we should move.  It was exciting and scary all at the same time.  

Jan 15--Devin came to the home with me.  We also saw 4 other homes that were in the same price range to compare  apples to apples.  None of the other homes even compared. 

Jan 16 and 17th we really thought and prayed about it and told Dan we wanted to meet with him Tuesday night.

Jan 18th--We met with a bank mortgage lender and got approval to get a loan for the Smithfield home.  That night we made an offer on the home and also listed our home for sale.

Jan 19th--The home went up officially and got a sign up in the yard.  Neighbors are starting to wonder what is going on.  De cluttering and got rid of our huge treadmill temporarily at Devin's sisters home.  

Jan 20th--My mom came up to help me paint our bedroom.  The couple did not accept our offer because they didn't want to wait for us to sell our home.  They were confident they would be able to sale it sooner.

Jan 21st--I was in Woods Cross visiting my mom and Devin called to say that someone wanted to come see our home that night.  I was panicked because we pulled our bed out in the family room since the paint was still drying and we had paint stuff still everywhere and the touch up wasn't even done.  So Devin said he would come home early to help me get ready.  An hour later he called back and said that someone else put an offer on the house and we have a day to come back with another offer or we lose the Smithfield home.  

We had already started thinking about renting our home instead of selling it.  So Devin called our lender and started running some numbers to see if it was even possible.

Once I got home I started cleaning with the kids help.  We got most of it done in an hour and then Devin came home and did the moving of the bed and we got rid of some extra furniture to make the house seem more spacious.  

I went to piano lessons with the kids came home and Devin did awesome getting the house all ready.  We had a group date playing wally ball with some friends which was great for stress reducing.  Then after we came home and got the kids in bed, Dan came over and we drew up a new offer on the house not contingent on our sale of our home.  We told Dan we would call him in the morning after we had some rest and time to pray and let him know if he should give the offer to the family.

Jan 22nd--Called Dan in the morning and told him we felt great about it and to go ahead and give them the offer.  He called us back at 12:00 noon and said the family felt like they should give the other couple another chance to counter-offer.  They had until 6:00 pm to decide to counter.  The rest of the day was torture.  Devin and I both were pessimistic about getting the house at that point.  We thought for sure the other family would counter and give a better offer and we had decided we would not go any higher.  6:15 We got a call from Dan and he said, "I have bad news, I'm going to be your new neighbor."  We were so excited.  

The next week was full of meeting with the lender again, inspections, appraisals, telling neighbors, informing my preschool families, getting boxes for packing, packing things we don't need.  We still don't know exactly our closing date but our plan is to move in the home Presidents Day Weekend.  That only gives us two more full weeks before we move.  CRAZY!!  I should be packing right now but I had to get this down on paper before it all escapes me.  Here are the pictures I took the first time I saw the home.

 Front view of home (West facing home)

Laundry room

Great room upstairs

Kitchen

Cabinets

Kitchen stove-flat top but electric so I'm going to have to learn to cook on this

Master Tub

Master bath

Fireplace down stairs

cold storage room

Bathroom downstairs

Bathroom downstairs

kids bedroom

Downstairs great room

nice wide stairs

down stairs great room

Some fun things we learned about the home after is the inspector couldn't find anything wrong with the home.  It's got sound batting in both the master bathroom and laundry room to damper sound from the washer and the jetted tub.  The bathrooms have water resistant sheet rock.