Friday, April 27, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
20 Weeks...It's a...
Here she is:
Her cute little fingers:
Her adorable foot:
Her pretty little leg:
Overall she is the best thing ever :o)
Her name is Alice.
Since I was about 13 years old I have loved the named Alice.
It's such a classic, old fashion name that isn't very common right now.
Also, Alice in Wonderland is one of my favorite books of all time.
Luckily, Stephen likes the name as well so Alice it is!
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
New House
So in June we are moving to Ft Campbell, Kentucky/Tennessee (it's on the border).
We had planned to rent but some friends of ours who just moved there bought a house and said its a great place to buy.
So I took a look around online at the houses for sale and found out that you can get a really nice house for pretty cheap.
The monthly mortgage would be less then the cost to rent.
I also made the mistake of looking up the kind of house you could get for the same price as our house in Hawaii...mansions, seriously, crazy how much of a difference location can make.
So we talked about it and decided that it seemed like a good investment to buy a house then rent it out when we leave like we are doing with our Hawaii house.
Since Stephen doesn't have any long weekends we had to do a quick 2 day trip to Ft Campbell this last weekend.
It was a crazy weekend.
We got there at about midnight Friday night and got back around 10pm on Sunday, a 7 hour drive each way.
It was worth it though because we found a great house.
Want to see it?
Here it is!
Isn't it beautiful?
Ok I had better back up in this story before you think I'm nuts.
Like usual for us we went on this trip with a solid plan and came back with something completely different.
We met with a realtor first thing Saturday morning and spent the day looking at about a dozen homes.
There was one house we particularly liked.
At the end of the day we were pretty set on buying that one.
Then our realtor mentioned a new subdivision called Greenbrier where you pick a lot and they build a house for you.
This of course had never entered our mind as a possibility.
So we drove over to this neighborhood that was basically one large c shape street with around 50 houses.
All the houses were brick and very cute.
Most of the houses in the subdivision were already build but there were about 6 lots left.
It has a community center.
A pool and playground.
A pond.
The neighborhood was very nice but obviously the opposite of our tastes seeing as that our dream home was on 10 acres with no other houses in sight.
This neighborhood is what Stephen calls "people packing".
But the realtor helped us keep in mind the point of this house.
It is not our dream home. It's an investment property that will mainly be a rental.
We will only be living in it for about 2 years.
The house that we had looked at earlier in the day that we really liked was a good fit for us, but not a great investment property or future rental.
Getting a house in Greenbrier would be an excellent investment and future rental.
For one, most people don't want to live in the boonies like us, they want a nice manicured neighborhood just like this one.
Also the area that this neighborhood is in is a great location that is really growing right now.
So with all that in mind we decided to go for it and are purchasing this lot here.
It's in a cul-de-sac which is always nice.
It's 2 houses down from the community center.
From the back of the yard you will be able to go into the park area.
So this decision was made Saturday evening, and being that we wouldn't be able to make anymore trips back until we came to move-in in June and that it would need to be build by then, we had to get everything done ASAP.
So Sunday morning we went to the builder's showroom to pick out all the options.
Talk about stressful!
Having to pick out all the options of a house in just an hour!
The floor plan was pretty much set due to our price range at a 3 bedroom, 2 baths around 1300 sq ft.
Luckily, for the outside we just drove around the neighborhood and picked a house we liked and said "make it like that one".
Here is "that one":
For the inside I had to pick cabinet colors, countertops, hardware, lighting, carpet, hardwood, linoleum and appliances.
For the paint color, I made it easy and just gave them the color I used in our house in Hawaii since I knew it was a good color.
It is so hard to know when you are looking at a little square of something (carpet, countertops, etc.) how it will look in a house.
I just kept thinking "I really wish my mom and dad were here!" (My dad is a general contractor and my mom is excellent with interior design)
But I did it, the decisions are made and hopefully it all looks good.
I am pretty excited about it.
It will be neat having a brand new home built just the way we want.
It certainly is going to make for a pretty epic before and after :o)
We had planned to rent but some friends of ours who just moved there bought a house and said its a great place to buy.
So I took a look around online at the houses for sale and found out that you can get a really nice house for pretty cheap.
The monthly mortgage would be less then the cost to rent.
I also made the mistake of looking up the kind of house you could get for the same price as our house in Hawaii...mansions, seriously, crazy how much of a difference location can make.
So we talked about it and decided that it seemed like a good investment to buy a house then rent it out when we leave like we are doing with our Hawaii house.
Since Stephen doesn't have any long weekends we had to do a quick 2 day trip to Ft Campbell this last weekend.
It was a crazy weekend.
We got there at about midnight Friday night and got back around 10pm on Sunday, a 7 hour drive each way.
It was worth it though because we found a great house.
Want to see it?
Here it is!
Isn't it beautiful?
Ok I had better back up in this story before you think I'm nuts.
Like usual for us we went on this trip with a solid plan and came back with something completely different.
We met with a realtor first thing Saturday morning and spent the day looking at about a dozen homes.
There was one house we particularly liked.
At the end of the day we were pretty set on buying that one.
Then our realtor mentioned a new subdivision called Greenbrier where you pick a lot and they build a house for you.
This of course had never entered our mind as a possibility.
So we drove over to this neighborhood that was basically one large c shape street with around 50 houses.
All the houses were brick and very cute.
Most of the houses in the subdivision were already build but there were about 6 lots left.
It has a community center.
A pool and playground.
A pond.
The neighborhood was very nice but obviously the opposite of our tastes seeing as that our dream home was on 10 acres with no other houses in sight.
This neighborhood is what Stephen calls "people packing".
But the realtor helped us keep in mind the point of this house.
It is not our dream home. It's an investment property that will mainly be a rental.
We will only be living in it for about 2 years.
The house that we had looked at earlier in the day that we really liked was a good fit for us, but not a great investment property or future rental.
Getting a house in Greenbrier would be an excellent investment and future rental.
For one, most people don't want to live in the boonies like us, they want a nice manicured neighborhood just like this one.
Also the area that this neighborhood is in is a great location that is really growing right now.
So with all that in mind we decided to go for it and are purchasing this lot here.
It's in a cul-de-sac which is always nice.
It's 2 houses down from the community center.
From the back of the yard you will be able to go into the park area.
So this decision was made Saturday evening, and being that we wouldn't be able to make anymore trips back until we came to move-in in June and that it would need to be build by then, we had to get everything done ASAP.
So Sunday morning we went to the builder's showroom to pick out all the options.
Talk about stressful!
Having to pick out all the options of a house in just an hour!
The floor plan was pretty much set due to our price range at a 3 bedroom, 2 baths around 1300 sq ft.
Luckily, for the outside we just drove around the neighborhood and picked a house we liked and said "make it like that one".
Here is "that one":
For the inside I had to pick cabinet colors, countertops, hardware, lighting, carpet, hardwood, linoleum and appliances.
For the paint color, I made it easy and just gave them the color I used in our house in Hawaii since I knew it was a good color.
It is so hard to know when you are looking at a little square of something (carpet, countertops, etc.) how it will look in a house.
I just kept thinking "I really wish my mom and dad were here!" (My dad is a general contractor and my mom is excellent with interior design)
But I did it, the decisions are made and hopefully it all looks good.
I am pretty excited about it.
It will be neat having a brand new home built just the way we want.
It certainly is going to make for a pretty epic before and after :o)
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
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