Independence Day!

We're so lame. We spent our one vacation day this summer de-junking out apartment. We knew we wanted to start the process of finding a house to buy, and didn't want to pack and move a bunch of stuff we really don't want. We also thought that there was no way we could afford anything but a minuscule house, so we wouldn't have room for it anyway. However, due to an unexpected promotion and raise, we were able to increase our home-buying budget. Seriously it was such a miracle for us. So we went for it.

Don't singe your hair!

My little firecracker!

We had been keeping an eye on Zillow for almost two years and had a fairly good idea of what we wanted and where we wanted to look. We had a good feel for price ranges and what the house selection was like at our price limit. Despite this we had never actually been house hunting.

The only fireworks we saw--sparklers.

We called up our agent and spent one whole afternoon looking at houses. (Hear the sarcasm? One afternoon of looking was not what I had anticipated!)

We dropped the ball on seeing fireworks, but they still had fun!

It is funny how looking at houses in person makes such a big difference. The ones we looked at online were definitely not the ones that stood out to us in person. The second house we visited just really stuck with us throughout the day. There were a lot of things about the house that made it stand above the rest, but the thing that really clinched it for me was the feeling I got there. I just kept getting the feeling. This is the right house. That was the right one. We should try for this house. This is remarkable because of the unhealthy amount of anxiety I have about buying a house. The money, liability, and responsibility seems almost crushing.

I had fun with my new camera.

So we went for it. And we got it! We negotiated down a few thousand dollars and signed the contract. The next few days I could hardly eat I was so nervous. We read hundreds of pages of home buying info and forms. It was daunting.

The sweet girl read an abridged version of Pride and Prejudice for the first time on July 4th.

It definitely isn't the prettiest home we looked at, but when we wrote down out house buying priorities it had almost all of them. There are still a lot of things that we want to do to the house to upgrade it, but the square footage, number of bedrooms, location, and lack of scorpions was all right. Hopefully we can address the other issues when we feel up to it. Two more major issues is that it has this pristine white carpet throughout the house and the tiny backyard has no grass (or really anything too much going for it). We'll see what comes first. I am planning on a lot of before/after type posts in the future.

John and I tried to write our names.

It is a little surreal to me that we are actually doing this. Buying a house?! I never, ever dreamed that the first home that we would buy would be a cookie cutter home in Arizona, but what do you do?

He got further than I did.

Honestly though I mainly feel blessed: this promotion; getting this house. I hope and pray that it won't be a rotten egg house. One way or another we are jumping in the deep end when it comes to figuring out how to take care of a home.

So blessed to live in the country!

We close in a week and a half. After that we have about a month to get out of our apartment. It will be nice to not be super rushed to clean everything, do a few repairs, maybe paint, and move.

Holly baby just slept! What a sweetheart!

We are becoming independent--our independence day!