House(s) and a mouse: a weekend recap

We'll start with the houses. Because there have been many, many of those this weekend. By my rough estimate I have researched 30+ houses and Joe toured at least a dozen. But I'll just cut to the chase here. Have we found "the one"? Yes! We think so. Nothing is final yet. But it looks like it's going to happen. But the process of finding our house sure has been...interesting! 

[STOP here if you don't want to read every nitty gritty detail.]

Its gone a little something like this. 

Friday evening. Serve the children a deluxe meal of "racaroni" and cheese, chicken nuggets, fries and frozen mixed veggies all while trying to make my final list of houses for Joe to see the next day (because I can't relax and trust the realtor to find us a house). After allowing the children to run wild for a few hours I put them to bed and continue my online house search. Graphs and charts are created...the old fashion way...with pen & paper. Finally go to bed and dream bizarre dreams of bizarre houses. 

Saturday. Continue to throw random food and toys at the children while continuing to research houses. I've started looking at Google maps street view. Investigating the public elementary schools even further. And mapping each house out in comparison to the hospital. Houses too close to major roads or assigned to "bad" schools are automatically eliminated. Create a new list of possible houses. Email the list to the realtor...just hours before the actual, physical house hunt is to begin! Realtor kindly tries to work some of them into their already full schedule.

Late in the afternoon the actual house hunt begins for Joe and the realtor. I hear nothing for hours. But fall in love with one particular house I know Joe is touring.  Finally as I am putting the kids to bed I receive a text. A list of half a dozen NEW houses Joe is going to look at in the morning. Houses I know nothing about! Thus I start researching all over again. Oh and the house I loved? Joe liked it best too:) Its spacious and has a good school. He also likes a smaller, cheaper option...but it doesn't have as great of a school. So I'm not thrilled. 

After the kids are all asleep I start my research on the new houses. And for some dumb reason I decide to check in on the kids one last time before I go to bed at an already too late hour! Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Because there was a mouse. Or at least the scratch scratch scratch of what I assumed to be a mouse in the kids' closet! (I am terrified of mice. Like frozen with fear terrified! The sight (or sound) of mice makes me a little sick to my stomach even. Which I know is extreme and unreasonable. But don't tell me that when I am in the presence of an actual mouse. Mice are my kryptonite.) So after half a dozen panic laden texts to Joe I set a trap and try to go to bed. No go. Instead I pick up and carry my sleeping children one-by-one upstairs to the guest room. Then I stress-eat ice cream directly from the carton...while looking at houses online! Finally go to bed and dream of rats and houses. 

Hannah's crazy haired house hunt! Just like her mama.

Sunday. The kids and I attend church. We were only a few minutes late. Because admittedly without Joe's help I can't get out the door on time! I may or may not have daydreamed about houses for much of the service. Oops. 

After church as I am nursing the baby and Hannah is crawling on me begging for food, Joe calls. Actually he facetimes me to show me the house he wants to put an offer on. Perfect timing. NOT. I convince Isaiah to serve Hannah lunch. Cold leftover pizza so I can "tour" the house in relative peace and quiet. It's the smaller, cheaper house. I'm not impressed. Later Joe calls from the bigger house. Despite a terrible connection and only seeing parts of it, I like the house. A lot!!

Later in the evening Joe and I decide we will put an offer on the smaller house. It's the responsible financial decision. Maybe we'll put a really low offer on the bigger house too. Can't hurt to try, right?!  I want to make the offers ASAP! But Joe wants to wait and see a few more houses in the morning and then make an offer. I'm okay with this decision until Joe sends me the list of houses he is going to see in the morning. And they are all bad! Automatic NOs in my opinion. Now I'm annoyed we are wasting time. Let's get this show on the road. 

Monday morning. Joe calls from a new (to us) house. He's excited. He likes the house. It's got plenty of room at the right price...with lots of "potential"! I ask for the address and as soon as I hear Joe's answer I groan. It's the house that I crossed off the list first because it is "A MAJOR FIXER UPPER". And I'm fairly certain we don't have the time, money or energy for that kind of project during residency. Joe keeps telling me it's decent but the pictures on zillow are telling me a different story! So Joe snaps pictures and texts them to me...lo and behold it's a different house. A better house! Zillow has the wrong pictures posted!!! And Joe's right. It's a good house at a good price with a good neighborhood and school! We quickly decide it's THE ONE and Joe gets busy drafting our offer. 

Joe makes an offer, buys some "we-are-moving-to-Texas" boots for our girls and hits the road! It was a successful 48 hours in Texas.

Okay so maybe that wasn't all that interesting after all. It felt a lot more interesting as I was living it! Sorry.

[Since Monday morning there has been a counter offer (which we accepted!) and a contract! Now it's just a matter of setting up a home inspection and financing and all that really important but boring stuff that goes into buying a house! Things are getting real around here. Soon we'll have to figure out how we are actually going to move the six of us and all our belongings across the country. Which reminds me the other day while talking to my mom I mentioned "moving halfway across the country". Isaiah was quick to correct me. To quote him directly, "Um mom. Don't you mean ALL the way across the country? Minnesota to Texas is all the way across the country. If we only went half way we wouldn't get there!" Smart kid.]