Happenings of our lives

So, Jordan and I wanted to buy a house before December 1 so we could take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit that is being giving to first time home buyers this year. So we’ve been saving for a big down payment and just getting ready to buy a house.

Before we moved to Missouri we started looking at houses. Luckily houses here are very affordable and because of the buyer’s market, we had a lot of houses to choose from. So, a couple of months ago I signed up on a website to look at houses in the Springfield Area. The website happened to be built for our Realtor, Susan. So she contacted us before we came out here and I (along with my brother Jared) met with her to look at houses. I told her that we were trying to take advantage of the Tax Credit and she said that we could probably close in time. The other thing that I wanted to make sure was that she wouldn’t let Jordan buy a house while I was gone (if you keep reading, you’ll understand why this is funny).

So, the week I was in Missouri I looked at houses pretty much all day every day, and I made Jared come with me. I’ll tell you, it is amazing what some people do to their houses. Anyway, we looked a ton of houses and actually saw a couple that I (and eventually Jordan) liked. So we would look at houses, then pick Jordan up and look at the houses that we liked in the evening after Jordan got off of work. So things went along like for most of the week. I really wanted to find a house before I left so Jordan wouldn’t buy one while I was gone. So we found some that we really liked, and some that we didn’t. So, we eventually narrowed it down to two houses and picked one that we really liked.

The day before I left Jordan and I put an offer on a house. We went through the house a second time and really liked it, but really didn’t love it. We really liked the closets and the layout of the house, but we weren’t sure that we really wanted it (there were also train tracks right behind the fence in the back yard). Anyway, we decided to put an offer on it. So we put a full price offer in with closing costs and we signed the papers at Susan’s (our real estate agent) office. We drove home and felt pretty good about it, until we got home. We started looking at other houses and our real estate agent told us that they had countered verbally and wanted full price but not paying all the closing costs. Jordan and I thought about it, and as we were looking at other houses, we found one that looked amazing on paper. So we withdrew our offer on that house. Then we called and asked if we could look at it right before I left with Jared to go back to Utah.

The next morning, we looked at this house, and it was AMAZING we loved it. There were hardwood floors, no one had ever lived there, the bedroom was huge, there was a big kitchen, etc. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, and it was in our price range. Jordan and I could really see ourselves living there. So the next day (after I had flown back to Utah) we put an offer on it. Well, they countered, and we countered and this went on all week until Saturday. They finally countered back at $2,000 above our asking price but with a closing date of September 15. We counted back and then they took another full price offer on the house. Jordan called to tell me and I was pretty upset. I really liked that house.

So after that we got to start all over. Except this time it was Jordan looking at houses instead of me. So I would look them up online, put them into a spreadsheet and Jordan would look at the houses with Susan. He got pretty discouraged the first day, but the second time he found a lot of houses that he really liked.

So, he found one that was PERFECT, that he liked better than the house we both loved. We talked about it, and decided to put an offer in on that house (without me ever seeing it). So we did, and eventually we accepted their offer. So right now we’re under contract. I got to look at the house when I got back and loved it.  Last Tuesday we had the inspection and there were a couple of minor things wrong (leaky faucet, squeaky floor, etc). There was one major problem: the air conditioner was broken, but they are going to fix it. If everything goes according to plan, we should have a house by the end of the month. We’re so excited! Our closing date is September 30, so really soon!

These are the pictures that were on the internet. Once we actually move in we’ll take some better ones.

We woke up and went to eat breakfast. When we came back to our room, there was a really weird bug by our door, which was the first of many weird bugs I have seen since we got here. The first thing that we noticed about Nebraska that morning was that it was a lot more humid than Utah. We started driving at about 7:30 (central time). Oh, so here’s where we figured out that North Platte is not half-way. Jordan and I turned on the GPS, to put in the Springfield Hotel’s address, and it estimated our arrival at 4:30p.

We drove for a while and we saw this bridge over the freeway, so we took a picture. The bridge is called “The Great Platte River Road Archway Monument”, I don’t know any more than that. There was so much construction everywhere; I guess summer’s that time for construction.

Jared and I saw a sign for York county and we had to get a picture for our dad. He never has anything with his name on it, so now he does. The best part about it was that we needed to stop so we took a picture of the water tower and got a free pamphlet on York County. It was cold and raining most of the way through Nebraska.

We briefly passed through Iowa, and we barely missed the sigh, so that’s the picture of the sigh that you can hardly read. Then we got to Missouri. We thought the green sign was the state sign, but it was actually about a half mile later. Jared started to take a lot more pictures of the scenery. The picture of Menards is for Erica, she used to work there.

In Kansas City, we were totally stopped on the freeway. Guess what it was? That right, more construction! Traffic went from 5 lanes down to 2 then down to 1 then a bridge. I didn’t like being stopped on the bridge, especially because they were working on it. Jared took some pictures of Kansas City while we were on the bridge crossing the Missouri River. After the bridge, traffic got pretty bad, so we didn’t really take any pictures. When we finally got out of traffic, we started to move a lot faster (the GPS told us our ETA was 5:25).

As we were driving we kept seeing signs for Fantastic Caverns, not just a couple either, like one on each side every half mile. On a side note, we looked them up when we got here and they are really expensive (21 per adult). Oh, the funniest thing that we saw on the way there were these signs that said “Share the Road.” It’s not like we’ve never seen them, but usually they have a picture of a bicyclist, but these ones have pictures of a horse and carriage, it was pretty funny.

We finally got to Springfield and the Odometer said 155552. I really wanted to take a picture when it said 155555. So we did, when Jordan was driving. You’ll also notice the check engine light was on, never a good thing.

Jordan was so excited that there was a Culver’s in Springfield so we went and ate there. That was the only time we ate out while we were moving. We ate burgers for dinner. Jordan got a concrete shake chocolate something. I got a mint cookies and cream shake and Jared got mango smoothie.

After we were done eating, we drove by Jordan’s new work so we could see where it was. Then we went back to the hotel and slept.

Click on the image to go to the album

Ugh, moving, what else I can I say? I really don’t want to repeat it. It wasn’t that bad, I just don’t really like driving so much.

The first day we left at 8:30a. Jordan was driving the truck and Jared and I were following in the car. We drove and said goodbye to the mountains and got into Wyoming pretty quickly. Wyoming feels like it goes on forever, there’s not much to see there. We wanted to make it to North Platte by the first night because Google Maps told us that it was about half way and we made a hotel reservation there before we left. We figured out pretty quickly that it was not half way (thanks to our GPS).

Wyoming was…interesting… there really wasn’t much there. Jared took a lot of pictures of the wind-mills, and we kept seeing semi’s with windmill parts on them, but not much else. It was amazing how much the landscape changed from Utah. It kept getting flatter with less vegetation. The first part of the day was really nice; Jared took some really good pictures of the clouds and scenery in general. Eventually it got cloudy and started to rain, but it made it a lot less hot .

Jared took a picture of a weird Lincoln head in Wyoming, I’m not sure what it was for, but it was interesting. We got into Nebraska pretty soon after and it was so flat, and it just got even flatter. We passed by the Cabella’s and made sure to take a picture for my dad to tell him we passed it. There was even a water tower.

It was raining a little, but we got to see a beautiful rainbow. Only one of the pictures turned out okay (that’s what happens when you are trying to take a picture while a car is moving). So we didn’t get a picture of the double rainbow, but it was really pretty. After it stopped raining, the sunset looked beautiful with the clouds.

We kept passing signs for “Buffalo Bill’s Ranch” my dad kept telling us that we should go and visit there if we had time. Well, we kept driving and finally got there at about 9:45p local time (8:45 Mountain time). We checked into the hotel and went to sleep.

Click on the image to go to the album

Just in case you were wondering, no, Jordan and I did not take the pictures while we were driving, Jared did.