I know I'm behind. I've already posted that I'm behind. I'm not going to rehash this in every post. I will tell you that our internet went down on Thursday, then again on Friday. Since I only had 20 minutes to talk to the tech guys before the kids and I left for the airport, instead of the minimum 45 that I am usually on the phone with them, it didn't get fixed. When we got home on Monday it was still out and I couldn't coordinate having anyone come out here until this morning to fix it. The guy was here less than 30 minutes. They problem solved with me on the phone for 45 minutes and still couldn't fix it, but he did it in less than 30. I'm really starting to hate the phone company.
Anyway, I have service once again which is good because it's very hard to sign contracts and do other important house stuff over a phone. Yes, you heard me right, sign contracts. That's correct, not only did we get confirmation over the weekend that our buyers had agreed to all the terms of our contract (meaning they accepted our offer on price as well as what we were willing to fix after the inspection) but we also found a house in Denver. Yipee!
It truly was a close one. The kids and I flew up on Friday after school. We spent all of Saturday morning looking at houses with a real estate agent, and the entire afternoon looking at new builds. There was one new build home that we both fell in love with and they had already started so it would be done in July or August, but the backyard was minuscule. I'm talking maybe 20-30 feet deep. Definitely not big enough for a swing set, which was pretty much all I was hoping for. The girls love to play outside so with our next house one of my stipulations was that we had to have a yard big enough to put in a playset for them. Seems like a reasonable request, but we had to nix several houses because the backyards were not big enough. We found it strange for a place where people pride themselves on their patios and their love for the outdoors. Maybe playing in the backyard isn't adventurous enough for them and they all hang out on hiking trails or something, who knows?
Saturday was kind of a bust. We didn't see a single house we would be willing to buy and we just couldn't in good consciousness go with the new build. Sunday we were back at it and looked at many homes with two different realtors. Nothing. There was one home that Charlie liked, but I just wasn't feeling it. It had most of what I wanted, but I couldn't get even the tiniest bit excited about it.
They told us we could request to see a few more homes on Monday morning, before I flew out with the kids, but the scheduling office closed early on Sunday and was completely closed Monday because of the holiday so it didn't really look good for us. We had an agent that was willing to take us out, but we couldn't get anything scheduled.
We went to bed pretty deflated. I was going to have to come out again, but when, and someone would have to look after the kids or we'd have to bring them with us again. It's not that they were bad while we were house hunting, they were actually pretty well-behaved overall considering the job at hand, but it took a lot longer getting kids in and out of car seats and looking in general. Plus, if any house had an animal inside Amanda was petrified and had to be carried. One house even had a bird in a cage and she clung to me like it was a vulture.
Sunday night Charlie woke up at 3 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep so he started looking at houses on his iPad. He found a few to rent and found another that for some unknown reason we had crossed out but that fit our criteria to a T. When I woke up the next morning he showed me the listing. As soon as I saw the pictures I knew that I wanted the house. He texted the agent and asked if we could just see that one house. We waited pretty impatiently until she came back and told us that we could see it on the way to the airport. We were cutting it close but we just had enough time.
When we got there another couple was looking at the house, which was a little unnerving, but as soon as we got inside I was positive this was the house I wanted. It wasn't perfect, but it had pretty much everything I was looking for. It's missing some window coverings, needs a little wall paper removed and has a weird bookshelf thing in the living room, but nothing that can't be fixed. Best of all it's got a great yard for the kids and lots of storage for us, which we need. Let's not kid ourselves, even though our house has been immaculate for the last month while we tried to sell it, there is no way it will ever stay this way without more storage.
We had our agent start the offer process immediately and sent a formal offer yesterday. By last night we had a signed contract and have already scheduled the inspection for next week. Assuming all goes well, we will close the day after we close on our house here.
So, I should be feeling really stressed but I'm really not. My two biggest worries were buying and selling the house and that's done. Although I'd like to declutter as much as possible before we go, we will have movers and packers to help us out so if I don't get rid of everything then we'll just move it and worry about it when we get to Colorado. We know that the school that Andy and Sarah will go to, just down the street, is good so we don't have to worry about that. We will still need to find doctors and a school for Amanda, but that will all work itself out when we get there.
For now, we have a home. That's pretty much all I can ask for.
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