Here's a little fun nonsense.
You are supposed to bold the ones you've done.
If you read this, consider yourself tagged! LOL
99 Things To Do
1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Kissed a stranger at midnight on New Year's Eve
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake Only dangled my feet in - the salt is gross
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee I was 30 when I had my first bee sting
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Update:
We're not getting the house after all. I'm really disappointed, b/c that is the only floor plan I've seen that I loved and had all and then some of our criteria. The general location was great too, although the actual location wasn't quite what we wanted, but we were willing to sacrifice. Anyway, the builder wound up being a real jerk. The boss kept changing things on us, and went back on the contract we'd signed. Decided he wanted another $10,000 down in earnest money. Now, if he'd been up front at the beginning, we might have gone ahead, but they were very deceptive, and I've learned since then that they tend to do this bait and switch type thing instead of letting you know up front. We farted around with that for over 2 weeks and we finally actually met with the boss who was mostly concerned about where we're from and didn't even know where the West Coast was. He was acting very "disgusted" about it. When we sat down with him the first thing he said was "talk to me". What? SOOOOOO unprofessional. I felt bad for the sales agent, he really did try and wanted to keep the deal and thought they would honor the original contract, but they didn't and although I could have fought it after reading through the fine print and knowing we were in the right, why? It would be too time consuming and there's no way we could trust them now. We asked for our earnest money back and walked away. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
I'm now on the house hunt again. There's another builder in the same neighborhood that we're thinking of going with, they actually use the higher end stuff in their homes as standard, but I just don't like their floor plans as well. The positive thing about them is they are up front about what money they'll need based on how we proceed. They also will custom build their plans to fit our needs, but that does require extra money. Another positive is that their floor plans allow for more yard space. We liked one of the plans that was around 2400 sf, but I didn't love it. There was no entry, just walk right in the living room which I hate, plus there was no 4th bedroom. Those were the main things that I really didn't like. If we got that I'd have to share the upstairs game room and also have that converted to a guest room. We'll see, the price is definitely right, and we wouldn't have to ask for many upgrades since they come with most of the ones we like.
Since I'm not sold on it yet, I'm also looking again and lived in houses. I called the realtor again last night with a large list, so tomorrow and friday we're going to be going out again house hunting.
We're not getting the house after all. I'm really disappointed, b/c that is the only floor plan I've seen that I loved and had all and then some of our criteria. The general location was great too, although the actual location wasn't quite what we wanted, but we were willing to sacrifice. Anyway, the builder wound up being a real jerk. The boss kept changing things on us, and went back on the contract we'd signed. Decided he wanted another $10,000 down in earnest money. Now, if he'd been up front at the beginning, we might have gone ahead, but they were very deceptive, and I've learned since then that they tend to do this bait and switch type thing instead of letting you know up front. We farted around with that for over 2 weeks and we finally actually met with the boss who was mostly concerned about where we're from and didn't even know where the West Coast was. He was acting very "disgusted" about it. When we sat down with him the first thing he said was "talk to me". What? SOOOOOO unprofessional. I felt bad for the sales agent, he really did try and wanted to keep the deal and thought they would honor the original contract, but they didn't and although I could have fought it after reading through the fine print and knowing we were in the right, why? It would be too time consuming and there's no way we could trust them now. We asked for our earnest money back and walked away. I guess it wasn't meant to be.
I'm now on the house hunt again. There's another builder in the same neighborhood that we're thinking of going with, they actually use the higher end stuff in their homes as standard, but I just don't like their floor plans as well. The positive thing about them is they are up front about what money they'll need based on how we proceed. They also will custom build their plans to fit our needs, but that does require extra money. Another positive is that their floor plans allow for more yard space. We liked one of the plans that was around 2400 sf, but I didn't love it. There was no entry, just walk right in the living room which I hate, plus there was no 4th bedroom. Those were the main things that I really didn't like. If we got that I'd have to share the upstairs game room and also have that converted to a guest room. We'll see, the price is definitely right, and we wouldn't have to ask for many upgrades since they come with most of the ones we like.
Since I'm not sold on it yet, I'm also looking again and lived in houses. I called the realtor again last night with a large list, so tomorrow and friday we're going to be going out again house hunting.
Monday, February 02, 2009
This house is exactly like the one we're getting, the finishes and color choices will not be the same. I wanted to get this floorplan with the reverse plan, but this one will work better with the lot we chose. Our second lot choice was right next to the one we chose and would have
worked better for the reverse plan (has to do with where certain utility things are), but that one had a street light on the edge of it, so it would have been on the side of our yard. They're only 
allowing a few of these plans in this neighborhood and in the gated one, and they all have to have different elevations (outside look) or be different in some way. They don't want to build a bunch of houses that look the same on the outside. This is not your custom home builder, we could go that route, but would have to take out a construction loan and then get involved in a more time consuming and big project, and we really don't want to do that at this time, although that would be ideal. This builder has certain lots they've already purchased or have a deposit on, and they have quite a large list of floorplans and options to choose from. The house in the pictures is not a model home, it's one of 2 of that floorplan that they've built here in Laredo, both for sale - the other one is in a completely different neighborhood, and they were testing the waters here to see how it would go, they've built this plan in San Antonio, apparently, but we will be the actual first customers with the plan here, so we're the guinea pigs for the neighborhood here.
NEWS!! NEWS!! NEWS!!
I'm going to skip updating the rest of our lives for a bit (mainly Thanksgiving, Christmas and NY) and update as to what is going on in our lives right now. We're going to buy a house! We'd decided we could afford to rent a house finally and so in January we started looking at rentals so we could get out of this apt., and there was just a bunch of crap out there. We'd noticed several nice rentals for rent in December that were decently priced, but apparently those were all snatched up. Anyway, we crunched numbers and figured out that it was actually cheaper for us to buy. We were kind of worried about making the payments, but knew we could go somewhat higher than what we're paying for rent. We decided to get a pre approved loan. The day before we'd planned on going in, we found out Chad got a very, very significant pay raise, one we weren't expecting for a long time, so we were stoked that we could for sure now afford the new house payment. We still have our mortgage on our home in OR, and that throws us a curve ball, but we're staying in way under top budget for the new house so we're not house poor. I've been looking now for the past several weeks, and after going through all our options on the type, size, requirements we have for our house and yard, we decided to buy new. We put our good faith money down on a lot. The lot is smaller than we want, but the home floorplan has everything we wanted and then some. We had to decide what was the most import thing, the home itself or the lot. We'll still be able to fit our boat in rv parking and have a small pool. We're in the area we wanted, but not in the exact neighborhood, although all neighborhoods within this main neighborhood was fine with us. We'll be close to the new high school and shopping at the stores we frequent. We're kind of city lovers, so this works out fine. We for sure decided we did not want to be in a neighborhood out of town.
Here are some pictures of the lot. They're taken from the cell phone, so quality isn't there.
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