We have Dirt

So we did it. We bought a lot and signed the contract to build a house. The construction will be done in 4-6 months. That means that worse case estimate we will have a new house for Christmas. I am soooo excited. I would like to use a few more "O"s but I think that everyone gets the picture. I will be taking pictures of every step of the constuction process. I can't wait to see a house spring up oout of nowhere.

The lot that is colored in dark purple is ours.

This is the elevation that we picked. The stone work on the front of the house is optional and we decided to keep it. We also picked the green/gray roof tile. The most popular roof tile is pink but that is overdone. Most movies that take place in Arizona show the pink, peach roof tile color. We have also chosen to put a bay window in the front which will give us 3 windows that look like the one shown.

On the Home Front

Here is the latest on the home finding journey. Last week I met with an agent in Queen Creek and we found the most perfect home. The home that we really want is already built but never lived in. The people who selected the house and had it built now cannot qualify for the financing. The development is going to give them until Friday to get the financing through another lender but they don't think it is going to happen. In the mean time we have put down a deposit to hold a lot for the constuction of a new home that is the same floorplan. If the house that is already done falls through we will move to that house. Otherwise we are going to go back out on Sunday or Tuesday to begin the paperwork on the new build.

The new build is really excitting cause other than the basic floor plan we can pick all the options. That includes everything from the look of the front of the house, the color of the house, the doors, cabinets, souround sound, and a million other things. Tonight we got an option list so that we can start to look through it and make some choices.

The floor plan we decided on

Although it would be really nice to pick everything ourselves it would be nice to move out of our apartment sooner. The new build will take 4-6 months but during that time our rent goes up by $200 per month (which is quite close to what our mortgage payment will be so it seems stupid to pay rent).

Wine Tasting

Last night I held the first wine tasting of my career. We had a group of 38 people at the restaurant for a tasting a ligth hors doevres. We served 18 wines. The reason for the tasting is that we have just changed our house wines. We will not longer be serving a wine called Inglenook and will now be carrying Southern Point wines. We wanted to invite everyone in to taste the new selections. I made the wine list this past week and a card for each wine with the descriptions from the wine menu. Each of the guests received an envelope on their way in, which contained a card for each wine with space for comments and a golf pencil. The guests had a wonderful time and I got dome good feedback. This is the first event in which the food and beverage director didn't step in and take over (she is a control freak).

One of the wine displays

The white wine display

Learning with Scattered Disappointment

We received a phone call from our real estate agent today and he spoke with the real estate agent of the bank that owns the house and they don't want to budget they want more money. This whole time I thought that banks don't want to own a home but they seem to like it. So the searching continues. I don't want to take off the picture I posted because this was a great learning experience. I wouldn't want to trade it unless of course we had gotten the house. I will be going out with our real estate agent on Sunday to see what else is out in that area. He was pulling some more listings this morning.

I found out today that our lease is actually up in the middle of August so taht gives us a lot less tiem than we thought. We do have the opportunity to go month to month but the rate goes up by $300. I am hoping that Mark and Lauren would like to move in here when we move out. I don't think that they like stairs like we do.

I have been working all day and I am exhausted I have so much going on right now and there were not enough hours today.

Quick Response

Today we got another real quick answer from the bank that owns the house. They came back with a counter offer on the house. In the previous counter offer they asked us for our last best, highest, and most final offer and we provided them with it in hopes of beating out the other buyers. I guess that we might have done that because they countered to us. We have decided that we don't want to go any higher because they already asked us for our best offer. I hope that they are going to come back and agree anyway. I mean why would a bank want to continue to won a home. They are not making any money with it sitting there empty. If not there are other houses out there and one of them is for us. We just need to act fast once we find out so that we don't have to renew our lease.

The Waiting Resumes

This morning we put in a counter offer so our waiting has started again. This time we requested a response by June 11th (which is Monday). If this is going to go through we really can't have an answer any later than that cause we would be closing at the beginning of July and need to get all the things rolling to finish this. I also have my boss going in for surgery at the end of next week so I really don't know when or even how much free time I will have to take care of this stuff. I guess JJ will probably end up taking care of some things while I am at work.

Tonight we watched the movie Idiocracy and I thought it was really funny. You can totally see how the world really could get dumber. We already accept people saying things such as "I did good in that class". It makes my ears hurt when people talk that way. I know that I don't use proper english but that just sounds stupid.

I got quite a few things accomplished today which I was worried about with my boss' pending surgery. I send out the counter offer, went to the bank (got a fee waivedon our account), got a raise (the one I've been waiting for), picked two new pairs of glasses (one brown, one black), went grocery shopping, made dinner, and watched a movie. I like to have good useful days off like that.

Back to work tomorrow and it is review time. I have done 4 of my reviews so far and have about 10 left. I have to write one more and it is the most difficult. I keep writing it and starting over.

Waiting Ended Early

While I was at the eye doctor today our waiting was ended. At the time I had just had my eyes dialated and I couldn't read anything so our agent read it to me. We have put in the offer an they have responded with a counter offer. The counter states that they have multiple offers and we need to respond with a new offer by tomorrow at 2:00pm. They really don't give you much time. We are very confused right now cause the counter doesn't have a specific number on it. The multiple counter just says that they have another offer but doesn't say what amount they want. It asks for the highest, best, last and final offer. I really don't like it. They sent this to both or all of the offers, which means that maybe our offer is higher than the other offer already. There is no way to know. The other thing that makes this harder is that our agent is currently on vacation in Indiana so we have been doing all this today by phone, e-mail and fax.

So we have to look at the numbers again and see what we want to do and e-mail the contract back tonight. We also still haven't had dinner and it is almonst 10:00pm.

4 Days till the answer

I am trying to take my dad's advice. We are waiting for an answer to our offer on the house. In the offer we said that we would like a response by Friday. My dad's suggestion is to look forward to having the answer on Friday so that if we get an answer in the mean time we would be a lot more excited. It does sound better than being disappointed all week that we haven't heard anything yet :)

So to sum this up we have still heard nothing.

Today at work I got smashed in the back with the door to the walkin. There was a chef on the way out of the cooler and I think that he kicked the door open with his foot because his hands were full. I was standing outside of the cooler with my back to the door. My back is currently now killing me. I am going to end up with a bruise from just under my shoulder to the hip. I am going to be because sitting at the computer is hurting too much.

New Home Update

Absolutely nothing!