Our Dream House

Here's the new house in SC that we're building...we close on June 15th and will be living in a furnished apartment for the month before we close. Hope you like it!
Front of the house:Great Room (will have hardwood floors throughout):The fireplace we'll actually have: View of the Dining Room from the great room: Justin's Kitchen (will have granite countertops instead of the concrete):Kitchen pass through: Guest bathrooms:Upstairs computer room/play room/man room: Master bathroom:Jetted tub:Laundry room (so excited about the sink and cabinets in there):Guest bedroom:Jackson's room:

Well, I hope you like it! Please come visit :0)

WORST trip EVER! With little breaks of good stuff in between

Words could not have expressed how excited I was to go to South Carolina over Spring Break. I was so excited to go house shopping, interview, and check out the area where I'm going to live for a very long time. Let's just say getting there was AWFUL! Here's what happened:
Last Friday, Justin and I arrive at the airport at around 11:30 am for our 1pm-ish flight. It's the Tulsa airport, so we don't have to arrive 2 hours early like we do in Chicago. A few minutes before our flight is about to leave we get news that our flight has been delayed. 4 hours of delays later, they finally cancel the flight citing mechanical problems and the weather in Atlanta, where our connection was. Well, instead of being normal they cancel 2 flights at the same time and tell both flights that we need to head down to the ticket counter to get figured out and that we wouldn't be able to get out of Tulsa that night. Justin went to the ticket counter and was 4th in line, 1st from our flight, and I went to wait for luggage. After an hour, Justin finally gets through the line and he is told that not only have they run out of hotels for the night, but they also tells us to be there on Saturday at 5am to check in and they'll get us on a flight out sometimes between 6-10am. WHAT!! So angry! Didn't mention yet though we had to wait another hour until we could finally get our luggage. HOW HARD IS IT TO GET THE LUGGAGE OFF THE PLANE IN LESS THAN 2 HOURS AFTER OUR FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED! So angry...so we drove the hour home b/c we had nowhere to stay the night in Tulsa and Justin didn't want to get a hotel for the night :0(
Wake up the next morning at 3:00 a.m. Drive an hour to the airport and get there at 5am. HOLY COW the line was the longest I've ever seen it before! Finally get through the line and they tell us we're on standby for the 1st flight, but we'll definitely be on the 9:30am-ish flight. Check our 4 bags of luggage and then head up to the security checkpoint...wait 30 minutes in line only to find out the moron at the ticket counter didn't put Jackson on out ticket, so then I have to run back downstairs to get my ticket fixed. HOLY FRUSTRATION! Finally get there and time to wait. Get on the flight and luckily are able to make the next flight out to Augusta. Finally get to Augusta around 3:30pm and guess what our luggage is still in Atlanta b/c the moron at Tulsa didn't put that we were flying to Augusta on the baggage tickets! So...luckily Delta let us borrow a carseat, so we could make to Aiken, SC for the night. Very angry! But it gets worse....after 2 days they still didn't get our luggage to us. By the 3rd day, we finally got all of luggage. I think the guy at the airport was seriously sick of hearing my voice 3 times a day for 3 days straight! He was nice though and ended up giving us $300 to spend on clothes, which originally was only going to be $200. The whole thing was such a debacle b/c I only had 1 pair of contacts. I basically had to beg the guy at Lenscrafters to give me a free pair of contacts on a Sunday. He almost wouldn't give me anything without a prescription, but I luckily had it in my purse...what are the odds! I think that guy though I was completely bonkers though b/c I was near tears when he told me there was nothing he could do for me without a prescription.

Other than the lost baggage and the delays in flights, it was a pretty successful trip. House hunting went as house hunting should go...STRESSFUL! It's especially hard you can't win the simple arguments with a husband who always has to be right and always has to win. I usually just give in b/c he's right most of the time anyway. After the 1st day, we saw more than 15 houses and had narrowed it down to the 3. The 1st one was the one I wanted, the 2nd one was the one we could both compromise on, and the 3rd one was the one that Justin loved above all else. After looking at all 3 again, we found we had problems with all 3 that we couldn't compromise on and so I was left devastated. I kept thinking we would never find anything b/c we had already looked at everything in our price range and in the areas we wanted to live. Justin kept saying, "why don't we look into getting a house built by the builder of that one house I really like and we'll just live in temporary housing until it's finished?" Living in temporary housing wouldn't be bad, but he was saying months and that's why I didn't even want to considering having a house built! But he looked into the builder anyway and he found out he was building a neighborhood near the hotel we were staying at and our realtor arranged for us to meet him the next day. After meeting him and finding out that he could have a house built by early June, we were sold! We also really liked him and he's a Miami University alum, so I think he gave us the Redhawk discount :0) So after that we drove about an hour to this house we really liked and saw the model that he had already built. Justin of course loved it...I liked it, but it's not my dream house. It's definitely a great house don't get me wrong, but not what I had imagined for us. I guess it's hard when you've lived in a great house for 4 years to try to find something just as great. My biggest complaint is that it doesn't have much of a yard and I really wanted a yard for Jackson :0( There's a little park area down the street, but that's not the same. I just keep telling myself that we don't have to live there forever and it's a beautiful house! Gosh, I sound like such a baby...a whiner...a complainer, but I swear I'm extremely grateful for this house b/c we weren't sure if we were even going to be able to get one. So...with that said, I'll show you the goods...in my next post :0)

Enjoying my last day of Spring Break and trying to mentally prepare to go back...not sure if I'm ready!

SOLD!

WOOHOO! Can't scream it from the mountains loud enough how excited I am that we've sold our house :0) It all has happened so fast and it's exhilarating! The way it happened is as follows:
Feb. 26th - Met with realtor
Mar. 1st - Realtor came and took pics/video
Mar. 3rd - Officially on the market
Mar. 4th - Realtors walk through
Mar. 5th - 1st possible buyer comes through
Mar. 7th - 2nd and 3rd possible buyers come through - 3rd buyer revisits at the end of the day
Mar. 8th - 1st official buyer - Low offer, so we counter
Mar. 9th - Buyer comes back with another counter offer - WE ACCEPT - sign contract
Mar. 11th - Inspection - everything comes up roses
April 30th - Our close date!
May 13th - Movers come
May 14th - Last day in Oklahoma

WOW is all I gotta say about this! I can't wait for this next chapter in our lives to start, but it's just really scary. As soon as I knew when Justin was going to start work in SC, I made sure my principal knew about my last day and then went in to super crazy mode trying to find my sub for the rest of the year. Luckily, my library boss found someone. I hope she's perfect...can't wait to meet her! It seems so much more real now that I know someone is taking over for me!

In other exciting news, I got a job interview for the school district we'll be living in for a media specialist position! I danced a happy dance after I got off the phone with the lady b/c I thought they were only going to hire internally, but thanks to my library boss' phone call to the human resources director, I got the interview. I go in on Tuesday, so wish me luck! I really really need this job! All I know is that they have 4 openings available and I would LOVE one of them! Basically, I'm going to interview with 3 administrators with the district and then if I pass that 30 minute interview, then I'll be considered for a position and my resume/application will be activated for principals to access. I really really hope that I can get it. God has so blessed us and I hope he gives us this one last blessing! Things have just really fallen into place...I keep thinking of when the other shoe is going to drop :0( I hope it doesn't, but I've never in my life had this many good things happen consecutively. Continue to pray for us that this last piece to the puzzle will fall into place. I just know this move is the right thing for us and its happening at the right time. Thank you God! You are so good to us!

Also, I wanted to let everyone know that my son has finally got his 2nd tooth. It popped this morning as Jackson turned 10 months old! He just has this adorable smile now! Awesomely beautiful my baby man is! He's been the absolute best blessing these past 10 months and I can't wait for the next 10 more! I'll make sure to post his newest pictures when we get back from SC. We leave tomorrow peeps for house shopping, an interview, and to see where we'll be living. I'm so excited I could just jump right out of my skin :0) I'll keep ya'll posted on what comes of our trip!

A Walk in the Park

Today we took Jackson to the park for the first time and I'm not sure he's there yet! He really LOVED swinging, but sliding down the slides was not really cup of tea. It was pretty funny watching his face when he was sliding down b/c I honestly don't think he knew what to do with himself. He was all giggles though in the swings though. He really just wanted to watch the other people at the park. I've got a people watcher on my hands! Little Mr. Busy Body! We'll try the park again though I think, but just a little bit at a time though.

As for other news, Jackson is getting over his 2nd cold. Total runny nose and a semi-nasty cough, but other than that he doesn't act sick. I think it mostly has to do with teething. You can see the very tip of his 2nd tooth coming through and I really think he's just miserable b/c of that tooth. Jackson is also starting to hold on to different things and walk around them. He has this little table he can walk a 360 around! He also walks around the coffee table and the couch. It's adorable to see how hard he concentrates to get from place to place. He's also getting extremely FAST at crawling. I'll turn my head for a few seconds and he's gone! He's squeezing in between all our furniture and will try to play games with us while he's crawling. He'll start to crawl and then look behind him for us and then crawl again and then look behind him and then start to crawl again. ADORABLE! He's such an absolute blessing!

Justin and I are both excited b/c this upcoming Friday we leave to go to South Carolina to house shop. I'm excited to see where we'll be living. It looks like we'll have a lot to choose from and we've already made a list of all the houses we want to see! I think I'm also going to try to stop by the Aiken County Public Schools human resources offices and drop off my resume by hand and hopefully ask some questions. I really hope to work in that school district if I can b/c I no longer want to drive an hour to work everyday. I think anyone can understand that! So no it's time to pray for me...that I'll get a job in the place that I want in a job that I want. Right now, they're hiring a library media specialist, but it's an internal hire only :0( That's exactly what I want to do, so I'm hoping they'll consider me. Pray that we'll find a house and that I'll be able to find a job!

Well, I'll post pictures another time of our adventures.