Papers

We signed papers today!!

We get keys tomorrow!

We are moving on Friday!!

House

I know it's been a little bit, sorry, but we have news.  Our offer on the house was approved!!  This happened about two weeks ago, the Friday I was leaving to get on a plane to go to my parent's house for the weekend!  We were so surprised to be finding out that we were getting the house.  We just moved into Christie's house, and were planning on being here for a little while.  Things have been going great here.  But, we were super excited to be getting a home of our own.  We had the inspection, and things went pretty well.  There are three big things that need to be taken care of, so right now we are just waiting for those to be done.  We still don't have a closing date, but we should be in the house no later than March 20!  Thank you all for all of your prayers over the last eight months.  We really appreciate all of them!

News?

So, we had to sign new papers for the bank, because they said that they didn't want to pay for some of the things that we had originally asked them to pay for.  Now by doing this, it is suppose to expedite our process.  Our realtor doesn't know if that means two weeks from now, or two months?  We are probably moving out next weekend to our friend Christie's house.  Now the bank has until February 1, to give us an answer.  The joy of trying to buy a house.

Happy New Year!

I hope that every one had a safe and fun New Years!!  We went to Matt and Katie's house for the night, and it was a blast.  We were able to hang out with them, Andy and the DaPenas.  We are so excited that Jeremy and Rachel are here now, and that we are going to start a young adult bible study!  It is exactly what Tyler and I have been looking for, so it's going to be a lot of fun.

Christmas was a very exciting time for us this year too.  We started Christmas in the beginning of December when Megan and Dan came to visit.  We had a lot of fun while they were here.  We went out to dinner with Christie one night, and went bowling.  We did Christmas on Saturday since dad was in town, and he made our traditional strip and go nakeds.  Don't worry, it's just a drink.  :D

With the money that Tyler's parents gave us for Christmas I was able to buy plane tickets to come home in February to go see Wicked with my mom, sister and aunt.  I bought some other things too, like new boots, Nicole's bridesmaid dress, and a plane ticket to Orange County to see Nicole graduate!!  Tyler bought his new computer!!  :D  It finally got here when we got back from Northern California, so he has had fun playing with that!

We both had really good Christmases at school.  My school gives each teacher a gift card to a local shopping center, so I am looking forward to going and buying some new clothes, books, maybe a jacket, shoes, and whatever else I can find in the mall!  Tyler got tickets to a Suns game on Jan 31, that are 13 rows from the floor!!  He is going to take Daniel with him since they will have way more fun at the game then I would going with him.  Tyler got a lot of other really cool stuff from his kids too, and a lot of gifts that show how much the kids enjoy having him as a teacher and that they listen to the crazy stuff he tells them.

We left for my parents house the Saturday before Christmas, December 20.  We left bright and early that morning, and when my parents picked us up from the airport, we went over to Aunt Michelle's house.  I tried to get out of dishes this year, and it just didn't work out.  We were so close, but no one else was helping, so of course I stepped in.  My aunt cooks all day, and the few days before Christmas dinner, you think other people would step up and help, but that's okay.  We will probably only have a few more years of those family Christmases so I need to enjoy them while we have them.

Sunday was Corey's birthday, so we all went to dinner at Claim Jumper.  It was a lot of fun to spend some extra time with them, and see Brooke again.  She is getting so big!  My friend Susan, who I graduated from Concordia with, came down to spend the day with us too.  She lives up in Santa Rosa now, and we haven't hung out since Tyler and I got married, so it was awesome to see her again.  We reconnected at teacher's conference in November so I'm super glad we were able to meet up with her.

Monday we drove down to Fresno to see Nicole and Jon!  We had a blast with them.  They took us to their two favorite places to eat.  Amazing places!!  If I knew what they were called I would tell you all to go!!  One was this tri tip sandwhich place, almost as good as Kinders, and the other is the little Mexican place, that was amazing!!  It was so nice to see them, and just hang out.  We went to Christmas Tree Lane too, which was a lot of fun!!  There were so many pretty lights, and the houses were beautiful.  One day we too will have a front yard all decorated for Christmas.

We spent the night in Fresno, and woke up the next morning to see Chris and Ashley for breakfast.  We haven't seen them since our wedding so it was nice to be able to see them for a little bit before we headed back to mom and dads.

At my parent's house we didn't do much of any thing.  My mom got really sick from all the babies at my aunt's house, so we had a very low key week.  Christmas morning I was up at six of course, I couldn't sleep in for yet another year.  Maybe one day I'll finally be able to sleep in on Christmas.  Santa brought us some really cool things, and then we opened presents.  My mom and I go shopping together the day after Thanksgiving, so most of the time I know what my presents are.  My parents totally surprised me this year though, and bought me my new computer!!  It's super nice, and I love it.  Tyler and I were saving money so I could buy it because my lap top just doesn't seem to like to work some days.  Now we are going to be able to use that money to buy furniture whenever we finally get a house!

Saturday night before we came home, we finally were able to see Breeann and Kevin.  It is so nice to have friends at home still, and to know that we are going to keep being awesome friends even though now we live in different states, and time zones.  We were admiring their Christmas tree and decorations, because there tree was all red.  Tyler had talked about wanting to do a themed tree, and I told him it wasn't possible with all of our other decorations we have.  Then we came home and looked at what we had bought last year after Christmas, and we had all red ornaments for our tree that we didn't have this year!! haha  Great minds think alike!

Now we are just enjoying the last couple days of our break, and getting ready to go back to school.  This month is going to be an exciting one, getting back into the swing of teaching, and being with the kids all day.  It's a good think we have a day off in two weeks!  :D

For those of you who have made it this far, and are still waiting to find out, no news about the house.  We are still waiting to hear.  We gave the bank an extension to January 21, due to the holidays, so we are hoping to know by then. My principal Andy had put an offer in on the house two doors down from us, and he just found out that they did not select him.  That's a huge bummer, because we were really hoping to all live next to each other.  We're hoping the house works, but if it doesn't, then we know that there is something better out there!

So from us here in sunny Arizona, to you out there in Cyberland, we love you guys and we miss you!

The Bank

Tyler and I have found a house.  We have even talked to a bank.  We have even been pre-approved!!  :D  At this point we are just waiting to see what happens.  It is totally out of our hands now.  We made an offer on the house for a little bit more than the asking price since we knew of one offer that had already come in.  We have filled out all the paper work, signed our lives away, had the seller sign the papers and now they are all at the bank, waiting for them to make a decision.  If we get the house it will be amazing, and we will be in a home by Christmas which was what my original plan/goal was.  If we don't get this house we will be okay with that.  We finally have a plan for saving money, and we are okay with it if we don't get the house.  So we are just asking for your prayers that God's Will will be done.

Thank you to every one who has helped answer questions for us, been there for us through this whole process, and has been praying for us.  We feel your prayers, and can't wait to share the news with you one way or the other.

It's Fall!!

I can't believe that it is already half way through October.  This year is going by so fast.  Here I was in June thinking that I would be ready to move out by now.  Things are actually going pretty good.  Tyler and I are surviving in out 10x10 bedroom, and have only wanted to kill each other a couple of times so far.  :D

School has been amazing.  I finished my first quarter on October 3, KRIS'S BIRTHDAY, and Tyler is finishing his quarter on Friday.  I have parent teacher conferences tomorrow and Friday, but Tyler had to do his a couple of weeks ago.  We both love our classes, and are so thankful to be here.  We found out some bad news about Prince of Peace, which is the school I taught kindergarten at last year.  They are going through a really rough time right now, and are letting go of two teachers at the end of their quarter which is in a few weeks.  I am still in disbelief about this, since both of these teachers were my mentors, and I know I wouldn't be the teacher I am today with out them.  I just ask that you all continue to keep them in your prayers, along with every one else who is struggling during this hard time.

I had fall break last week, and it was amazing!!  Breeann came to visit for four days, and we had an AMAZING time.  We were just girls, and it was so nice to just hang out for a couple of days and not have to worry about any thing.  We stayed at the Hotel Indigo down in Scottsdale, so that was amazing as well.  She is such an awesome friend, and I am so grateful for her.  Kevin and her are having an engagement party at the end of the month and we are so sad that we can't be there to celebrate with them.

After Bree left I got an amazing email from our relator Kim.  There is a house listed in Matt and Katie's neighborhood for a really good price.  Katie and I went on a walk through the neighborhood on Sunday, to scope out where it is, and we walked through an even bigger house further down the street that is going for $315.  The house that we are really excited about is the big house that we have been looking at.  We are going to go look at Sunday, to see if we like it on the inside.  At this point Tyler and I were planning on waiting until summer to try and move, but we'll see if this ends up working out for us.  Right now it is all about the numbers for us.  We are being very diligent about writing out a budget together, and making sure that we stick to it.  God is providing for us, and with out him there is now way that we would be making it month to month, and we aren't even being rent right now.  I am constantly amazed that we survived in Orange County last year.  I really don't know how we did it.

We are very excited about going home for holidays, and can't wait to see my parents for both Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.  It might be our last year home, since next year hopefully we'll have a home!! :D

Tyler just has one thing to share with every one: God is good!!

A hold on moving

Well, we have had to put a hold on our house hunting.  We got the numbers back for our mortgage guy, and it wasn't as good as we had hoped for.  So now we are hoping that we will be back to our Christmas plan.  It may not work out that way, but we are hoping.  I know that by the time we are ready to buy a home the one that we will fall in love with will be there.  

We are both working on getting our classrooms together.  I had my first staff meeting on Monday, and Tyler's first one was on Friday.  So now we both have a little over a week to get every thing together for kids to come!!  I can't believe how short our summer has been this year, but that's okay.  Hopefully I will be working on my masters starting this fall as well.  I have applied to Concordia Wisconsin, and I am just waiting to hear if I got into the program.

Jim and Nina came to visit us that weekend, so that was a blast!!  We went and saw Step Brothers on Friday night with Matt, Katie and Andy.  Yesterday we gave them the whole tour of the area.  Went to Shepherd, Christ, downtown, Valley, all over.  Then last night we played lots of games.  They had to leave early this morning though, so no more excitement today.  We miss them already!!

Four Houses

So Kim is amazing!!  She sent us information on houses in Matt and Katie's neighborhood, and then some that are near their house.  Tyler and I found four that we really like so we went and found them this morning.  We were only able to look at the outsides, and this is what we have discovered.  The cheapest one will need a lot of yard work.  The other one in Matt and Katie's neighborhood is the biggest unit in their housing development!!  The other two are like five minutes away from their house.  The first one we went to has these huge orange flowers in front of it, and this huge entry way.  I really liked the neighborhood, and there is a school really close to the house.  The other house is on the other side of the 51, but is BEAUTIFUL.  It has a porch in the front where we could sit out there, after we trim the hedges in front.  The landscaping is beautiful, and the neighborhood is amazing.  I really liked some of the other houses in the neighborhood too, but they weren't for sale.  :D

Kim emailed us again tonight, and said she could meet with us this week.  So we are meeting with her tomorrow morning.  She's going to take us to these four houses, and we'll see what we like.  These are only our top four off the information she sent us, but she is amazing!!  She is working so much for us already, and we haven't even talked to her yet.  Thank you so much Matt and Katie for recommending her to us!!  Thank you Shepherd for being there, so that Matt got a job three years ago!!  :D  Thank you Kim for loving Jesus so you go to church there.  Thank you God for all that you do for us!!

Continue to keep us in your prayers.  This is our last week of summer.  Both Tyler and I start staff meetings next Monday, July 28.  At the rate that things are going with Kim we are hoping that we might be able to buy a home by October!!  We are really excited about this, but also very nervous.  It's going to be such a commitment, but we are ready to start the next chapter in our lives.  NO we are not having kids, or thinking about it yet, but we have to prepare before we can act on it.

We miss you all and love you!!

Realtor

Tyler and I have emailed a new realtor, and she responded very quickly back to us yesterday.  She is the one who helped Matt and Katie buy their house, and they loved working with her.  I will be calling her this afternoon when we get back from the movies to see what she can do for us.  Keep us in your prayers!!!