{Home Inspection & Escrow Instructions}

WooHoo! We had our home inspection on Sunday. It was great! Darren and Sepideh came down to check out the new digs and give us their thoughts! Thank God my brother is a GENIUS! He's going to help us re-do the kitchen, since Mike's back can't take that right now! He's got it all figured out, so it'll be GREAT! Move a doorway here, knock out a wall here....perfect! They're totally excited for us and love the new place! The inspector didn't find anything strange, which was GREAT! Good solid foundation (raised) with good footings and no signs of shifting, etc. Roof has about 10 years left...another good thing! The few things that he found, we divied up into what we were willing to fix/deal with and what we wanted the sellers to do. We asked...and they are doing EVERYTHING that we asked for! YEAH! We aren't unreasonable, and neither are they! Good thing in a business deal. So we have our escrow instructions @ our agent's office that we're going to sign today. Praise God! Everything is going smoothly and whatever bumps we encounter, we know that the Lord will help us through!

{Our NEW House....in Escrow!}

Decided to put a few pictures on here that we took this morning so ya'll can see our "Happy Place"! The address has been blurred out for privacy purposes....we don't want everyone knowing where our new place is! Those of you that need to know will be getting your "We've Moved!" cards in the mail once escrow closes! YEAH! We're VERY excited!

{We're in ESCROW!!}

Oh yeah, BABY! Our offer was accepted and we enter escrow in the morning! WooHoo! Hopefully escrow will go smoothly! Our first house! We have been patient for years...and it's finally paid off! And all on our own, too! We're VERY excited! Thanks for all the prayers and good wishes and we'll keep you updated!

{Update on 2 Houses @ Once---ANOTHER Update!!}

We just signed a counter-offer on the non-short sale home we put the bid in on Saturday for. Counter-offer was the same as our original offer to the seller, they just want a 30 day (or sooner) escrow. No Problem-o!

Now we're back to the "wait-and-see" part...we signed, so now hopefully they will too!

{Update on 2 Houses @ Once}

Okay....so the one from Friday that is another short sale house, we're in the "2nd position", meaning one offer was deemed "better" than ours. Okay.

On the house we put our bid in for on Saturday that is NOT a short sale house, they have 3 offers (as of this morning) and are looking at them this afternoon. We should know something by tomorrow afternoon on that one.

Let's play the "wait and see" game....again! :-)

{2 Houses @ Once}

Well....Friday we put a bid in on a house. And, as usual....once we did, the next day we found ANOTHER one that we liked too! So the one on Friday is a short sale (as are all the others we've bid on!) and the one we found on Saturday morning is NOT! So we went out to Corona to meet with Grandma and Papa for Meghann's birthday lunch and then went with our realtor in the afternoon to look @ the 2nd house. And we put a bid in on that one too! Hopefully we'll get ONE of them! That would be nice! It's a strange, annoying, crazy process buying a house in this upside-down market. So many people bought when the market was REALLY high and with REALLY bad loans....so they are all having to get out of bad loans, hence all the "short sales" on the market right now. Problem is...the agents are listing lots of these properties at such low prices that the banks aren't taking any of the offers because they don't want to lose that much $$$. So we just keep doing what we can....checking the MLS, looking @ houses, and putting in bids. We keep praying about it that the Lord will deliver us into the home that is right for us. It's much easier when it's in His hands. Takes a lot of pressure off! Hopefully soon you'll see a blog post titled, {We're Moving!}

{Happy 14th Birthday, Sweet Baby Girl!!}

Happy 14th Birthday!!

14 years ago today was THE most blessed day of our lives! Our sweet little baby girl was born @ 9:54am weighing in @ 7lbs, 2oz! We were thrilled! Oh wait....Mike wasn't THERE! :-) He got thrilled a little later that night! He was on a layover in Hawaii coming home from Okinawa, Japan. He didn't expect to meet his daughter that day! It was love at first sight for all involved! Who wouldn't love our sweet little girl?!?! She's beautiful, funny, loving, kind, sweet, smart, adorable, amazing, musical, follower of Christ, totally wonderful human being! We celebrate 14 years of wonderfulness having you in our lives! We count ourselves lucky every day! We'll be going to Disneyland today and then to celebrate with Grandma and Papa tomorrow! Lots of fun with family and friends! Thank you for being our wonderful little girl....uh, young lady!

We love you!

Daddy & Mommy

{McAuliffe Middle School Music Concert}

Last night was Meghann's 2nd to last concert with the McAuliffe Middle School Orchestra! :-( We are going to be SO sad when we have to leave Jeff! Thankfully, Ky will be there for 3 years, so we'll get to keep going back! All the kids played very well...as usual, and it was a pleasure to listen to! Here are some pictures of our gorgeous Meghann playing the string bass. She's SO good at it and we're happy that she's inherited both of our musical talents! She wore a different shirt at first because we went to dinner @ Chic-Fil-A before the concert and with a white shirt, we didn't want to take any chances!

{2009 St. Patrick's Day Card}

{Without the flash}{With the flash to show just how SPARKLY it is!}

LOVE this card! I know you shouldn't say how much you love something that YOU create, but I think it's super cute! So all our friends and family will be getting these in the mail! I sure do enjoy creating beautiful pieces of art for all the people in our life that appreciate it!

{"Flair" from Facebook}

We love playing with the program on Facebook called "Pieces of Flair". Meghann sends a lot of them to us and we send them to all our friends....Megs sent Michelle this one today and she thought it was pretty funny!