A Set of Firsts -- Dinner and Birthday (E and I) Parties

We had friends over last weekend for dinner. E cooked out on the grill. I have to admit I'm still a bit intimidated by the grill. It's run by natural gas and plugs directly into the house line. Thankfully E is happy to be the grill master so I turn it over to him. Excited to be trying out a more new recipes and bringing out the old ones -- anyone remember the shrimp, bousin, prosciutto and basil? Pure heaven.
He loves to putter in the yard. The tomatoes and the flower/ornamental grass beds have become his new hobby. He is usually out in the evenings watering and carefully maintaining the garden. He's already had to re-stake several of the tomato plants since we've moved in. Needless to say, we've got LOTS of tomatoes. I think I may make some sauce or blanch and freeze them. I don't want them to go to waste.

It was also E's birthday yesterday. I baked him homemade pizza with pineapple and Canadian bacon - his favorite. Amongst his presents were a new turntable (will also burn the LPs to MP3s) and an indoor/outdoor weather station. For those of you who know about E's Weather Channel fix (who else would know the names of anchors and that they have their own shows??), he was very excited. He was playing the records and enjoying ones he hadn't heard in years.

Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

We'll we've finally gotten a bit chunk of the boxes unpacked, with many thanks to my parents for their help. The kitchen is unpacked and we've been able to sleep in our own bed for the past week and a half. We've only gotten about half of a dozen or so left (all books and can't get unpacked until we get more book cases...) to go and are like we're starting to settle in. There's an odd sense of appreciation and ownership that overtakes one (at least the case for us) that we have a new found sense of home. Not just a place we are paying for (aka renting), but rather a place that we have a sense of roots in. It was a big step for either of us to make the leap to buying a house, given that we'd both been serial renters for so very long. It's a nice feeling coming home to that just it, our home. When we go out and stake the tomato cages or water the flowers, they are our. What a great feeling, although you all out there (our family and friends) have all taken the plunge and bought a house so we've not likely telling you anything new. It's just our new to us. At least for awhile. Kinda of like new car smell. Great for awhile, but then you realize that it starts to fade away and you find a rhythm. I'm sure it will be like that for E and I with our new home.

E went through the house and some pics -- they are below. We hope that you'll all be able to come up and see us sometime. While the Tri-Cities is a bit off the beaten path, we've got a lot to offer.

Our still pretty empty Living Room...Perhaps in the next year or so we'll get some additional furniture...

Our new Dining Room. The small table in the entry way is from J and E (my maid of honor at the wedding). J made it for us as a wedding present.

Note the lamp in the right hand corner here. My dad made it from an old surveyor's tripod and an antique lamp shade he found at a tag sale. It's even prettier when lit up.

Our new Family Room....Many of our pictures on the walls are from my Aunt. We finally have enough wall space to put them up.
Our little eat in kitchen area.

Our office, which is covered on 3 of the 4 walls with books. Somehow either E nor I can seeming part with a book. We've got many years of them between us, which is necessitating a trip to IKEA to pick up some more inexpensive shelves. The trick is to find more wall space for them.

Here's a final wave from E. He's fixing the part of the banister the movers dinged with our dresser. It's all still a work in progress, but coming along.

Last minutes signing and boxes (lots of boxes)

We're finally in! We had some additional papers to sign on Monday due to an error by the mortgage company. Our real estate agent and I drove around town getting E's signature and returning them to the appropriate place so the closing could go through as planned on Monday. I think we got it in at the 11th hour and finally got keys late Monday.

Friends came over and helped move a few fragile items and the fridge/freezer food, but most of the items were boxed up in the garage waiting for the movers. They came early Tuesday and got everything out of the old place and into the new. When we started moving boxes in, it started to get a bit more real. Still sinking in, but as we unpack more and more, reality starts to hit. It's nice to finally have space to unpack things. I opened boxes that hadn't been unpacked since E and I lived back East over 3 years ago.

The prior owners took great care of the place. So much so, that when we came to pick up the keys, the Mrs. was here watering the plants (she let us know we needed to water them 2x daily) and taken out the garbage so that we had an empty can when we moved in the following day. Nice, but I think perhaps they are having trouble letting go......Not having owned a house before, I can't know how it must feel for them.

My parents are here helping out with the cleaning and unpacking. My mom has been dusting and cleaning and helping get the kitchen unpacked. My dad has been tackling the garage. It's been a really big help.

We'll post photos once we find the connection to the camera. Seems to have been misplaced in a box somewhere.....

Signed on the Dotted Line....

We finally did it! Nothing like getting things in at the last minute....The paperwork was there just shortly before we were to sign. E and I are excited and can't wait to finally get into the house on Monday sometime (likely after 3 or so...). Doesn't quite yet seem real...Perhaps when we walk in with the keys and it will all come together. (:

Still Waiting

It's Thursday night and still no papers.....We were told there are 2 applications in front of ours to still go through underwriting....Plus the fact they got it in late (miscommunication between their staff). Our Realtor assures us this happens and that we should be OK to close Monday. Not keen on cutting it so close, but as long as we can sign tomorrow (we have a late appt. at 4:30) we should be OK. Wish us luck!

A Slight Hiccup

The plan was to sign the papers tomorrow and the closing would record on Monday (28th). When I talked to the title company today they said, "well maybe you'll be able to sign...." Turns out our mortgage company hasn't gotten the paperwork to the title company on time....We finally got word the papers will be to our title company sometime tomorrow so we can sign on Friday. This will give us a close date of Monday, but now likely not getting the keys until the evening. The movers are scheduled for first thing Tuesday morning.

On a plus note, we did a final walk through. The staircase railing was fixed and the hose bibb will be fixed on Friday. The homeowners kept all the paper work (including the original folder of documents detailing all subs who worked on the house). They showed us how to work things, including the sprinklers, oven (it took the house inspector a bit to figure out how to pop out the buttons), where the water shutoff is, and to change the filter in the fridge, etc. They are leaving us a rug (it covers up a faded spot on the hardwood anyway) and a warranty/service contract for the furnace and heat pump. Since they are not moving into a new house right away (it's being built), they cannot take it with them nor get their money back. Bonus for us! They'll come in the Fall and set things up for us, change the filter (a special one for high dust filtration -- changed 1x year), and check out of the system.

Still feeling a bit reserved and trying to not get too excited yet. I think it will finally seem real once we get the keys. Then I can relax a bit....

Counting it down - 1 week and counting

So we close on the house next Monday. It seemed for close when we first picked out the date and now as it gets closer, the time seems to not be moving fast enough. We've got most of our stuff packed up, including the kitchen, so we're living off the rest of the food in our freezer to try and finish it up before we move.

We have our final walk through on Wednesday, where the sellers are going to go through all the details of the house, like how to work the sprinklers, the heating/cooling system, the gas shut off, ect. Our Realtor said they've even written out all the instructions for us, which is quite a help for us.

All that is left is for the papers to be signed, the check to be delivered to the Escrow company, and the movers to take our boxes to the new house....We'll take pics and post as soon as the dust settles!