We Closed!

Oh yeah, you read it right... We did close yesterday-- finally! After almost 3 weeks (21 days to be exact) of waiting after the original close date, we closed! So I call this 'phase 3' and it is complete. This is apparently a 4 phase process, and so that means we are almost done! Phase 1 was moving our furniture and getting our stuff out of the townhouse, phase 2 was the final, official part of moving out of the townhouse, phase 3 being closing of course, and phase 4 is moving into our house! Now all we need to do for phase 4 is wait for the occupants to close on their house, which will hopefully be within a week(?) and then we can move in! Then the neverending, perpetual phase of living there, fixing it up, doing improvements, etc will commence. That one is okay though because there are no time constraints. Also, today Brandon and I went and got our licenses redone, with our new address! Thankfully, you get 1 free address change on your license so we took advantage of that! However the main reason to get our licenses changed was that our temporary tag, the 2nd one, on the Jeep is expired and we need a tag! The tag office wouldn't give us one until we both had Union County addresses on our license, so Brandon wanted to wait until we had our new address so we wouldn't have to change them twice, if that makes sense. Anyway, we have been productive I guess you could say and hopefully we will be moving into our forever home soon!

Slowly, But Surely

Sooo, we were supposed to close on our new home this past Friday. Well, it didn't happen. The appraiser had to amend his paperwork for the comps in the area, and then send it back to the VA. They have sent the appraisal back in today, and I truly hope and pray that everything is right and we can close this week. It has been such a pain to close on this place, and I don't know if I just don't remember closing on the house in Dahlonega, but I don't remember it being this much of a headache. We need to close soon, too, because we have to be out of our house by Thursday! Luckily we have everything packed up except for our closet and the bathrooms. Boy, do we know how to pack up a house quick-- we just started on Saturday! We need to buy 7 more large boxes, but other than that, we have3 been able to use all the boxes we had left over from the move from Dahlonega. And, my wondermous husband has already taken all the items from the basement and garage! Isn't he wonderful!?  I think so.  I also think that Caylen thinks we are nomads, though.... She just rolls with the changes though! Gettin off subject a little, she has been the most delightful child here lately. Not that she is not usually a delight, but I am telling you, she makes every second spent with her a pure pleasure! I don't even want for her to go to bed at night anymore-- I just want to spend more time with her! But, believe me, she still makes it a priority for her bedtime to be before 8. :) Anyway, back to the moving talk, and it is hard for me to write all this through gritted teeth, but it has been a pain! Packing hasn't been bad, but I know after we pack we have to move it over there and then unpack it when we finally move... so on and so forth. I am not really dreading the unpacking so much, I just want to get in our house! The VA is apparently 'cracking down' on loans and they must have every 't' crossed and every 'i' dotted. For real! Anyway, I don't want to complain-- I just want to get this mess over with! I know that this is God's plan and He will work it out for us, and I just must remember to give it to Him and let him do His thing. Hard to do though! Hopefully by our next post we will be in our new house, getting settled in a place we will live forever!

Oh, and I have to say, my father in law is coming to visit this weekend *fingers crossed* so I am really excited to see him and for him to see how big his 'pea girl' has gotten!

New House

Remember the house I talked about earlier? The one we are trying to close on, and the one we plan to rot in? Well, we are planning on closing next week, a week from today!  It just sounds way easier than it really is though.
Last time I talked about this house we were awaiting inspection and appraisal. The appraisal went through without a hitch, but the inspector was a real pain in the rear. He wanted all the gables of the house repainted, the deck and pond dock stained, the garage painted, and the roof to be inspected.

Well, the painting got off to a great start today! We picked out a beautiful color, Homestead Brown, and it looks so amazing on that house! It just makes it look brand new, and brings out a lot of the color in the brick.  The garage will also be painted the same color. It just looks awesome. And, Brandon is heading out to the house to stain the deck and dock a little later today. It will be a 'cedar' color. I don't know what that looks like exactly, it sounds pretty, that is just what he told me.

Also, the inspector estimated the square footage on the house and it came out to 2700 heated square feet, not including the deck and front patio and garage.  That is by far the biggest house we have ever lived in! He also made a 'note' about the roof looking dated, but we had a roof inspector come and he said it was fine. Boy, do those VA inspectors keep you on your toes! They just love to make things difficult!

Anyway, the inspector has to come again on Monday and make sure every little request of his was granted so the loan fairy can come visit us. ;) Hopefully we can get all that stuff done by then! Until then, I will be taping up boxes, since we saved them from last move, (a grand total of 3 months ago) and start packing stuff up!

Could This Be IT?

What a whirlwind our lives have been! Brandon and I have been married for almost 5 years now, and we have lived in 2 places in Dahlonega (one being our house we own there; we have lived there twice), Flowery Branch, Texas pre-deployment, him Iraq, me Georgia, then Texas again, then our house in Dahlonega for the 2nd time, then Blairsville.  We had planned to live here for a year, in this townhouse, but some things have been coming together for us.....

We have had our eye on a certain house ever since we moved back from Texas. It wasn't, however, supposed to go on the market until Spring of 2010, when the owner was planning to retire. It is a wonderful house-- 2500 sq. feet, right on the edge of town, 2 car garage, 2 acres, and a beautiful pond.  For a great price, since we know this person, obviously. Well, the person decided to put it up on the market the morning that we had our portable DVD player and most beloved Veggie Tales movie stolen. From our car. While parked right. in. front. of. our. house. (!!!!)

K, I see, not toooo big of a deal, right? However, what's next? Our house? Who knows. Anyhow, we took it as a sign to go ahead to and try for the house anyway. If it happens, it happens, if it's just not God's Will, it won't. Believe me, I don't want it to.  However, after much prayer, we applied for a loan, got it, and we are just awaiting inspection/appraisal. Believe me though, there will be no problem with the appraisal! Our closing date is June 18, the date we were supposed to take our anniversary trip, but we'll see if we can go earlier. If not, then we will reschedule.

As previously blogged about (I really want to put a link to a previous blog here, but I just don't feel like rummaging through the archives), we are going to live in our next house that we buy until we rot. That's right, the funeral director from Cochran Funeral Home is going to have to come in and physically remove my body in order to get me to my truly final resting place. This place will just be my final living place. Trust me. I never want to move ever again-- I want to settle somewhere I can nest in and make my own. And, I believe this is it!!

We Have Arrived! (In Blairsville)

So, I guess I will make this short and sweet, as it is not too complicated.  We packed up our stuff just in time to move on Saturday. We barely got everything out of the UHaul by dark! Major thanks to Josh Stanford! We have been unpacking like crazy, so by now, 4 days later, we finally have everything out of the boxes. Now, as far as being organized, we are not there so much.  We have also had my mother in law and brother in law here with us so it has been pretty hectic overall, but I think we are gonna make it! Our renters are moving in tonight, and I hope everything goes smoothly with them. I gotta give it to them for doing a D-it-Y move from Fort Drum!

Yeah, it feels great to live not only in Blairsville, not only a short walk to work, but in town! We are close to everything and we have saved so much time not having to drive 45 mins each way every day! Our town house is a little smaller than our Dahlonega house, but the price was right and it is beautiful so we love it. It only has one full bath, but we are adjusting! I do miss having our yard too, but we have a porch in back and it has been great to use.  I have already potted a few flowers for out back, and we fit all our outdoor furniture and a playset for Caylen (courtesy of her Nana) outback. It is cozy, but it all fits-- even though it was somewhat challenging!

Well I guess that is all I have to say about that, but I just wanted to let everybody know that we survived the move, we weren't sure if we would, but we are settled in now and loving being so close!

We Are Moving to Blairsville!

Part 1
So, the other day when Brandon came home from work, Monday it was, he came up to me and gave me a great big kiss and said , "You are a genius." Uh, ok. It happened, coincidentally, to be the day that marked him being home for a year. I had made him a homemade angel food cake, with lots of cream cheese icing, and it said "<3 Welcome Home <3" I thought he might have been really glad that I made him a cake? Yeah I had no idea why he would be calling me a genius.... He followed this with telling me that on his way home, he had received a phone call from a military couple PCSing from Ft. Drum. They wanted to rent our house!

We had just put it up for rent about 10 days prior!! The guy came by and took pictures and put it up on his site, which would cost us a little $ if we went through him. However, I had an idea, since I was a former military wife myself, that I could put it on the site I always used to find a house: ahrn.com (automated housing referral network). It is a site that has rental houses specifically around military bases, and there is no fee! I put up the pics and gave a good description of it and BAM we get this call. SO awesome. Now. It is not like me to just get excited at the prospect of tenants; I don't get excited about something unless I know it's gonna happen. However, they did sign a 1 year lease yesterday! They were really sweet too-- they have one child, a 9 month old boy, and they were about our age. I talked to the wife for a while yesterday and I think this is going to be a great blessing! We have been praying for a way to get 'over the mountain' so we wouldn't have to live so far away from family, friends, church, etc. God truly answered our prayers!

Part 2
So if Part 1 is about getting our house rented, Part 2 I guess is us trying to find a place to rent ourselves. Why rent and not buy? Well, for one, we need it immediately and we don't have time for closing, even if we could get a loan. However, the fact that we already have a mortgage and even though we are renting it out, most lenders are not going to count rent as income... blah blah blah, boring loan stuff.  So, of course we are going to rent for a while until we can find a place to buy that we will live in until we rot. yuck. So we looked at a couple of places... the first place was an old house with a great yard, but a very outdated oven (stone age), no overhead lighting in bedrooms, and a little dirty with a funky smell. Hmm. Also a little pricey for the included dirt bonus. Place #2 was a great townhouse, small, but great. All wood floors, with some tile, basement, all new-- including appliances and granite countertops. Breathtaking! But, small. 2 Bedrooms, 1 whole bath, 1 half bath. I guess I need to get used to showering with Caylen's Boon Frog Pod.  The price is super duper too! Yes, it is a little small, but it is temporary.  I arranged to sign the lease on Friday. Woo hoo, right? Well, I looked over the lease and saw that it said the ever dreaded "no pets" clause. We have a cat. So, that is a problem. I emailed the lady I had been talking to and asked her about it, but she hasn't got back to me yet. I really hope they can work with us on this one, because there really isn't anywhere else to rent in Blairsville. and oh yeah, we move on Saturday.
THIS Saturday, the 20th. Whew!
We have already packed up a lot, but some stuff we are just gonna leave out and pack into our car. We are luckily very used to moving so this is not as painful as it would have been if we hadn't moved four six times already. This will be seven. I am so happy that we will be on the other side though so I am just trying to see the silver lining in packing all these boxes. We are one step closer! Just please keep us in your prayers as we go through this transition, and that we find a place to live soon! I know God brought us these renters and He will find a place for us to live!

Edit:

The landlord emailed me back and told me that pets are accepted on a case by case basis, and then told me she would meet to sign the lease, so I am assuming we are in the clear :)  YAY!

Back in GA at Last!

Well, we are finally settled in! We have actually been 'settled' since Wednesday of last week, but we just now got internet! I can't believe that we made it this long without internet, to be honest. So, our household goods came here to Dahlonega on the 31st. We also did our walk-through on that day as well. The movers were done by early afternoon that day so we had the rest of the day to unpack, and then we unpacked Tuesday and Wednesday everything was put away! We were lacking a few things so we went to Target for them and bought Brandon some work clothes as well while we were out. Brandon started his first day on Monday and he absolutely loves it! Never in the 4.25 years we have been married, exact to the day actually, have I ever seen him come home from work with a smile and want to talk about how his day was! I am so happy for him, and we are all so happy to be back with everyone. I, however have been so so so SOO incredibly busy I think the top of my head might spin off just any minute! There is so much to do, really, and it seems like the minute we got here there was a never ending list of to-do's.

Caylen is almost 11 months already! Whew, it has all gone by so fast! This means she is having a birthday coming up soon and I feel so unprepared. I know I have not put up many recent pictures, but I have just finished putting up a few on facebook that are a mixture of Caylen at 10 months old. She has changed so much this month! And, we have been so busy too! Those pictures can be viewed here, by the way.

So, next month, right before Caylen's birthday, we are all going to Disney World! Yay! I always thought Caylen would be older for her first trip, but I know she will have fun anyway. We are going with mom and dad, and Anna and Ava (aka Caylen's favorite little girl :-] ). Well, that is about it for this post; Caylen is taking a nap, oh glorious nap, for the first day in 5 days so I am going to take this time to breathe deeply......

We Made it to GA!

So we are finally here, back in GA. We were very happy to leave Killeen and to finally be getting back home. The only word I knew to describe how we felt was exhaustion. Pure exhaustion. Our stuff was packed up on Monday, then it was moved out on Tuesday. Wednesday we used to clean the entire house from top to bottom, get the pest control people to come, and have the carpet professionally cleaned. I accidentally threw away my keys to the duplex, yeah stupid I know, and Brandon had to dig through the trash to find them and threw up whilst looking for them! Poor thing.... We did survive the week though which is all that counts, and I will tell you the truth, there were times that I was not so sure we would survive!
So on Thursday, the day we had planned to start our journey, we waited for 2 hours for Longhorn Properties to come and do a walk through and the finally came and so we didn't get to leave until 1 PM. We had planned to leave before 11 so this threw the proverbial 'wrench' into our plans. We ended up staying Thursday night in Shreveport, which is not very far just maybe 6 hours, but we got to hang out with Allison and Daniel so it was really nice to see them. We didn't know if we would be able to make it home by Friday or not, but Brandon did really well driving and we made pretty good time. We ended up making it back to Blairsville by 8:30 Central time last night. Caylen was very good on the trip for the most part; she was fussy Friday because she was off her nap schedule but she still did pretty well. The cats did pretty well, too except for the first couple hours of driving. They had to sit and wait for us to finish the walk through so they were really tired of being in the crates by the time we left. Sox especially was freaking out-- she was foaming at the mouth and drooling and vomiting! She is okay though, of course, she just gets stressed easily. Well, we will be in Blairsville until Monday morning when we do the walk through with our renters and then transportation is bringing our household goods between 8 and 10. So, we have a couple of days to relax before we have to start getting everything unpacked! Whew!

The First Post

So.... I guess I have a lot to say, considering that this is my first post on the blog, but I will just hit the high notes. I decided to create a blog for our family so we can keep everyone, family and friends (whether on facebook or not) updated with our family happenings and pictures. This week I have been in Blairsville visiting my family, in hopes of retaining my sanity that has been threatened while in Texas. I got a good deal on plane tickets and I am glad that I came now because if I had waited much longer, we would already be moving out here! Yes, we will be coming back to GA much earlier than planned because of Brandon declining orders to Ft. Campbell, and thus being eligible for an early seperation. We are very happy about this, of course, since we have been wanting to go back to GA ever since we got to Texas.
Since I have been here in Blairsville, Caylen has decided to do a lot of new things! She started with babbling repetitive consonant sounds ("mamama, dadada, gagaga" etc.) and then she started waving! The waving went to clapping hands (!) and now she is (finally) starting to try to crawl. She has been trying for a while but just gets too frustrated and didn't seem to have enough core strength. She did push herself around today though with her legs while on her belly so that is a great start! She also seems to be teething, but who knows if it will actually end up in teeth this time??? She also plays peekaboo-- she takes her shirt or a blanket and puts it over her face.... very cute
So, our lease/purchasers decided not to buy the house in Dahlonega, long story but oh well, so we will be moving into that house when we move back in September. It is small for us, 2 bedroom, but if we get rid of some stuff and squeeze in real tight, I think we can make it work. I absolutely love that house so it won't be hard to move back there, and I love Dahlonega so I think it will be good overall. Plus, we can go to Gold Rush around Caylen's birthday and enjoy the beautiful fall weather on our covered redwood porch. I can just imagine having a nice hot cup of tea in the morning (yeah still no caffeine for me) on that porch, or sitting out on it, watching the sun set. We have so many things we want to do to that house to further improve upon it, and we can't wait to begin our lives post-military!