Homeowners!

We are officially Home owners!

I've been looking at houses for months just to see what is available and in July David brought up the idea of starting to seriously look and try to find something.  So we went through the process of getting pre-approved for a loan and contacted a realtor... and then I went out of town for a week and a half (ha!).  When I got back at the end of July we went on our first home tours.

When we had originally looked at houses a few months ago we had looked mostly in Richardson.  There was a house that I fell in love with there and it went off the market in June, but it kept me thinking about what else was out there.  But by the time July came we had started considering a search in East Plano.  So our first few weeks we limited the search to a few neighborhoods in East Plano.  Our church partners with an Elementary school there, so we thought it would be neat to move into that neighborhood and plug in more that way.  We put offers on 2 different houses and both of them fell through.

Then we spent a week checking all the listings and not a single new house was listed in that zip code for the entire week.  So we started talking about looking in Richardson again just to "see what's out there."  We went and looked at 8 houses in Richardson about a month ago and when we got to the 2nd to last house I just felt like I was home.  I had seen the pictures of it online and really liked it, but I always dismissed it because it was further west and south than anything else we were considering.

But we really liked the home that day.  And we did some research on the neighborhood and the schools and started to feel like maybe that was the place we were supposed to be.  The school there is similar to the one our church partners with (and it's right across the street from our house) and as an added bonus this house is really close to UTD and all of the international students we hang out with! So we put an offer in the next morning and it was accepted that night!  

And thus began the crazy process of inspections and quotes and packing.

We closed last week and got the keys on Monday!

Monday night David and I met over there to go into the house for the first time by ourselves.  And we took Lily for her to explore her new home and yard (she was a fan!)

I absolutely love my new kitchen (and all of the house!).  And did I mention the pool?  Something we were definitely not looking for, but excited to have it!

We spent today getting lots of errands run--we went to IKEA, Target, Staples, Home Depot, and Walmart to get some of the necessities and extras as we get ready to move in next week.  Now to finish packing up this week and then get settled in to our very first home!

More pictures to come once it's all set up!