Turkey, Cake, and a Roof Over Our Heads

Again, sorry for the long delay between posts (we’ll try to be better about this in the future!), but it has been a busy month for us. We’ve been slowly looking for a way out of our apartment since we arrived in AZ. It isn’t bad, but it is just a little too small and a little too old for us. So we’ve been hitting up open houses here and there when we’ve seen them in the paper, but that has been pretty hit or miss. I got Jess a “House Buying for Dummies” book for her birthday, and a few weeks back we got ourselves a realtor and jumped into the house hunt for real. She took us around looking at various houses the last few Saturdays for several hours. We saw a bunch of nice places and narrowed it down to a few (one of our favorites had a pool!). Then it came time to make a decision. We had it narrowed down to three places. One was the pool house that wouldn’t need too much work – just some repainting (their color choices were very interesting to say the least). But other than that, the house was great! The next one would need new carpet, and probably new flooring in the kitchens and bathrooms (the bathroom had carpet!), but the price was lower, so we would have been able to do that ourselves. We really liked the layout in that house. Then the third house on our list didn’t quite exist yet. It was new construction. The housing development was in a great area. It was closer for me to get to work, and really close for Jess to get to work (she could probably ride her bike if she wanted). It was a little more expensive, but since it is new construction we’d get to pick out everything ourselves and not have anyone in the house before us. After weighing our options, we decided that a little bit higher price tag was worth it for the new construction, plus the location was the best out of the three houses we liked. So, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we signed all the papers and put down some money to get the ball rolling (or rather the cement truck rolling) on a new house. We made some choices, and picked out some options that night along with our lot, so in 6-8 months we’ll have a new house! This past Saturday, we went to the design studio to chose our carpet, tile, cabinets, counters, and window coverings. This coming Saturday, we pick the rest out (paint colors, wiring, appliances, etc.). We’re really excited about the whole process and can’t wait to move again (never thought you’d hear me say that did you?!?). I’ve included some photos in the gallery of the model house based on our floor plan, and our lot (pile of dirt).

In other news, we enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving holiday… twice. On Wednesday night, we took a trip to Phoenix and spent Thanksgiving with my grandma and grandpa-in-law (:-)). Grandma Jean cooked a wonderful meal for us and sent lots of leftovers home (which I have been enjoying pretty much non-stop since Thanksgiving!). We drove back to Tucson on Thursday afternoon since Jess (to her dismay) had to go to work on Friday. I went out and fought the Black Friday crowds to do a bit of Christmas shopping while she was at work. Then, after Jess got home from work, we celebrated National Cake Day (my family’s made-up holiday). This was Jess’s first National Cake Day, which entails going out and buying the biggest frosting-est cake you can find the day after Thanksgiving. My dad made up the holiday a few years back with the justification that everyone eats pie on Thanksgiving, making the day after, National Cake Day. Give it a few years, I guarantee everyone will be celebrating this holiday! Then Saturday night we went over the Uncle Robert and Aunt Nancy’s for Thanksgiving number two. Their house was full of family and friends while we enjoyed our second turkey of the week. I love turkey, and would have no problem eating it every day if given the chance (actually, I have been eating it every day). It was nice to see everyone, and meet a bunch of new people. We’ve got photos of both Thanksgiving celebrations with National Cake Day sandwiched in the middle up in the gallery.