Right on Target Graduation Party
9 hours ago
Sunday, November 20, 2011
House Update
We put an offer on House #10! The seller has since countered and we accepted. On Friday we had the house inspection and found several things that need to be fixed including old termite damage. We are waiting for his response in a few days. The house needs some work, but things we are hoping to do ourselves. We're also hoping to "rent" the house before closing so we can accept our shipments and get out of hotels! Still TBD at this point. Here is a picture for now!
Graceland
On our road trip from Minnesota to Virginia, we made a few stops including two nights in Memphis. Since Glenn's birthday fell in the middle of the road trip, we decided to spend that day eating BBQ and relaxing without any driving.
We stayed at the Peabody hotel in downtown Memphis. It was a great location right off of Beale street and, thanks to Facebook, we had some great recommendations for that night.
For the afternoon, we checked in to our hotel, dropped off the pooch and headed to Elvis's home, Graceland.
Well, shortly after we got there, we got a call from the hotel that Stella was making all sorts of noise and they would have to remove her from our room. What a pain! They took her down to the office and fortunately, she was as sweet as can be down there and enjoyed attending the office meeting. Is this what troubled kids are like? Seriously embarrassing!
Needless to say, our tour of Graceland was hurried, but we saw his house, his cars and his airplanes. I might have done it at a more leisurely pace, but we saw what we wanted to see.
After picking up our PITA, we enjoyed a birthday bottle of wine and more BBQ and drinks that night. Stella got to spend our time in the restaurant in the car. We still wanted to spend the night in the hotel! She seemed to do alright. We definitely got strange looks since it was a pretty fancy hotel, but they DO allow dogs. They even gave us fancy Peabody doggy bowls.
Glenn and I definitely want to make a trip back to Memphis, maybe for their annual BBQ festival in May. We've learned a few tips for hotel living with a dog though:
- leave the tv on, ESPN is great because it is loud and has lots of talking.
- put her in her kennel so that she can't sit by the door and listen for noises.
Here are some pics of our time in Memphis.
We stayed at the Peabody hotel in downtown Memphis. It was a great location right off of Beale street and, thanks to Facebook, we had some great recommendations for that night.
For the afternoon, we checked in to our hotel, dropped off the pooch and headed to Elvis's home, Graceland.
Well, shortly after we got there, we got a call from the hotel that Stella was making all sorts of noise and they would have to remove her from our room. What a pain! They took her down to the office and fortunately, she was as sweet as can be down there and enjoyed attending the office meeting. Is this what troubled kids are like? Seriously embarrassing!
Needless to say, our tour of Graceland was hurried, but we saw his house, his cars and his airplanes. I might have done it at a more leisurely pace, but we saw what we wanted to see.
After picking up our PITA, we enjoyed a birthday bottle of wine and more BBQ and drinks that night. Stella got to spend our time in the restaurant in the car. We still wanted to spend the night in the hotel! She seemed to do alright. We definitely got strange looks since it was a pretty fancy hotel, but they DO allow dogs. They even gave us fancy Peabody doggy bowls.
Glenn and I definitely want to make a trip back to Memphis, maybe for their annual BBQ festival in May. We've learned a few tips for hotel living with a dog though:
- leave the tv on, ESPN is great because it is loud and has lots of talking.
- put her in her kennel so that she can't sit by the door and listen for noises.
Here are some pics of our time in Memphis.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
My new car!
My sugar daddy bought me a new (to me) car today! A 2010 Toyota Prius. A little piece of Japan just for me.
I love it! Now I just need to think of a name for her... Any suggestions?
Oh and yes, I am still learning how to park from the left side of the car (again), clearly.
I love it! Now I just need to think of a name for her... Any suggestions?
Oh and yes, I am still learning how to park from the left side of the car (again), clearly.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Camouflage
She's finally getting used to this hotel living which is good since we're looking at least a couple more weeks of it!
Monday, November 14, 2011
Househunting Day 2
A much more successful afternoon! Yay! I am feeling optimistic in fact.
We spent the morning setting up a PO box at the post office so that we can start to receive our own mail. Currently it is being sent to my parents as well as a friend's house in town. I suppose that is this evening's project. We also stopped by a few apartments to see what kind of short term leases are available. We have until Monday before we have to be out of this place and it sounds like USAA is taking about 45 days to close on a house/approve a loan. I was hoping to be "home" by Christmas, but that might not happen. Finding a short term lease is harder than I expected surprisingly. The shortest lease we could find is 2 months, but 3 or 6 months was much more common.
We met Jill after lunch and had 7 houses to look at....
House 5: A cute townhouse in my favorite neighborhood, but overlooking the highway entrance ramp, not so lovely. Decent size and storage. Even a cute little yard. It has potential. Nothing we love or hate. But a very sweet house.
House 6: This was an interesting house. It was actually a co-op style house where the first floor was a different house and we would occupy the 2nd floor. It even had an unfinished walk-up attic on the 3rd floor that was screaming with potential. I had so many ideas for that space, it would have been fun. It was just under 2000 sq ft not including the huge attic. There were 3 bedrooms and a "library"/office. The house was tucked back in to the woods on a beautiful street. My favorite location thus far. In the end though, we decided being upstairs and having to share a yard with our potentially friendly but perhaps very scary neighbors just wasn't ideal. If we didn't have Stella or planned on having children, I would have jumped at this house.
House 7: This house is in the slightly expanded search area that I originally constrained myself too. After driving around a bit and looking at our budget, I realized that I would have to be a little more flexible. This house was just over 2100 sq ft and was ADORABLE. All 3 full baths were recently renovated and the master bedroom had a huge walk in closet, which is very uncommen in these older homes. This home was built in 1919, but the walk in was part of an addition that included a family room, master bath and sitting/office area. It had a cute backyard and a very large garage/shed. Not big enough for a car, but a work bench and tons of storage. Glenn and I both loved this house, but... of course there is a but... the neighborhood is sketchy. We are within walking distance of ODU and many of the houses in the neighborhood look like college student rentals and therefore, not very well kept. Perfect house and lot, not perfect neighborhood.
House 3: We are back at the sick girl house. It's cute, it's a little quirky. It has a whole-house fan which, I guess since we're from MN, I've never heard of. The kitchen was renovated recently, well half of it was. I'm underwhelmed, so is Glenn.
House 8: This house is in our second favorite neighborhood again. (BTW, I say our, but really it is me. Glenn isn't as set on the neighborhood as I am. He is more about the house. Oh well, this is my blog.) I dub this house the Alice in Wonderland house. Every room is super tiny and I feel like a giant. The house is 1700 sq ft, but somehow feels much smaller. We leave pretty quickly.
House 9: We drive just a few blocks down from the previous two. The house looks nice from the outside and it is 2300 sq ft. It smells funny. I'm not impressed, we don't even go upstairs. Even our realtor says she would leave.
House 10: The listing that says "completely renovated and updated" has me intriuged. It is just over 2000 sq ft with 3 BR and 2 baths. The only picture on the website is of the outside. The listing was kidding, it has brand new walls, floors, windows, bathrooms, kitchen. Everything. It smells much better than the last house. The living room, dining room and kitchen are all open. Perfect for entertaining. We walk through everything, it has a basement, but we're close to the water so I'm guessing it gets water, it would only be used for storage. There are 2 bedrooms and a bath on the main floor. The yard is a blank slate, needs some TLC, but is fenced in. Through what looks like a closet door off of the kitchen, we access the stair way in to a HUGE master bedroom. I think it is the size of our entire kitchen, living room and dining room in Japan combined. This neighborhood is much more of what I've been looking for. There are kids playing, there are young families. When we walk back to our car, a lady across the street says this is the "best neighborhood".
So we love House 7. It is charming, it has great space. But I love House 10 AND the neighborhood. That is where I can picture us living with our little future family.
Did we just find a house? :)
We spent the morning setting up a PO box at the post office so that we can start to receive our own mail. Currently it is being sent to my parents as well as a friend's house in town. I suppose that is this evening's project. We also stopped by a few apartments to see what kind of short term leases are available. We have until Monday before we have to be out of this place and it sounds like USAA is taking about 45 days to close on a house/approve a loan. I was hoping to be "home" by Christmas, but that might not happen. Finding a short term lease is harder than I expected surprisingly. The shortest lease we could find is 2 months, but 3 or 6 months was much more common.
We met Jill after lunch and had 7 houses to look at....
House 5: A cute townhouse in my favorite neighborhood, but overlooking the highway entrance ramp, not so lovely. Decent size and storage. Even a cute little yard. It has potential. Nothing we love or hate. But a very sweet house.
House 6: This was an interesting house. It was actually a co-op style house where the first floor was a different house and we would occupy the 2nd floor. It even had an unfinished walk-up attic on the 3rd floor that was screaming with potential. I had so many ideas for that space, it would have been fun. It was just under 2000 sq ft not including the huge attic. There were 3 bedrooms and a "library"/office. The house was tucked back in to the woods on a beautiful street. My favorite location thus far. In the end though, we decided being upstairs and having to share a yard with our potentially friendly but perhaps very scary neighbors just wasn't ideal. If we didn't have Stella or planned on having children, I would have jumped at this house.
House 7: This house is in the slightly expanded search area that I originally constrained myself too. After driving around a bit and looking at our budget, I realized that I would have to be a little more flexible. This house was just over 2100 sq ft and was ADORABLE. All 3 full baths were recently renovated and the master bedroom had a huge walk in closet, which is very uncommen in these older homes. This home was built in 1919, but the walk in was part of an addition that included a family room, master bath and sitting/office area. It had a cute backyard and a very large garage/shed. Not big enough for a car, but a work bench and tons of storage. Glenn and I both loved this house, but... of course there is a but... the neighborhood is sketchy. We are within walking distance of ODU and many of the houses in the neighborhood look like college student rentals and therefore, not very well kept. Perfect house and lot, not perfect neighborhood.
House 3: We are back at the sick girl house. It's cute, it's a little quirky. It has a whole-house fan which, I guess since we're from MN, I've never heard of. The kitchen was renovated recently, well half of it was. I'm underwhelmed, so is Glenn.
House 8: This house is in our second favorite neighborhood again. (BTW, I say our, but really it is me. Glenn isn't as set on the neighborhood as I am. He is more about the house. Oh well, this is my blog.) I dub this house the Alice in Wonderland house. Every room is super tiny and I feel like a giant. The house is 1700 sq ft, but somehow feels much smaller. We leave pretty quickly.
House 9: We drive just a few blocks down from the previous two. The house looks nice from the outside and it is 2300 sq ft. It smells funny. I'm not impressed, we don't even go upstairs. Even our realtor says she would leave.
House 10: The listing that says "completely renovated and updated" has me intriuged. It is just over 2000 sq ft with 3 BR and 2 baths. The only picture on the website is of the outside. The listing was kidding, it has brand new walls, floors, windows, bathrooms, kitchen. Everything. It smells much better than the last house. The living room, dining room and kitchen are all open. Perfect for entertaining. We walk through everything, it has a basement, but we're close to the water so I'm guessing it gets water, it would only be used for storage. There are 2 bedrooms and a bath on the main floor. The yard is a blank slate, needs some TLC, but is fenced in. Through what looks like a closet door off of the kitchen, we access the stair way in to a HUGE master bedroom. I think it is the size of our entire kitchen, living room and dining room in Japan combined. This neighborhood is much more of what I've been looking for. There are kids playing, there are young families. When we walk back to our car, a lady across the street says this is the "best neighborhood".
So we love House 7. It is charming, it has great space. But I love House 10 AND the neighborhood. That is where I can picture us living with our little future family.
Did we just find a house? :)
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Househunting Day 1
Glenn and I signed up for USAA's Movers' Advantage program. I heart free money. They assigned us a realtor and we've been working with her over email for the last couple months. I told her where I wanted to live and we've been getting listings. I took a look at them and mostly just hoped a few would still be available. We weren't about to buy a house without seeing it first.
We got in to town on Friday night and checked in to our hotel room. We're in a Candlewood Suites for the next week for so. It's cozy studio apartment but Stella's slowly getting used to it and not barking at every single noise at night. Slowly. She's worse than a baby right now. We can't leave her back at the hotel alone and we can't take her in to most of the places we're going. She's got a nice little set up in the back of the car now because we have to leave her there from time to time.
We met with our realtor, Jill, on Saturday morning to check out 4 houses. I sent her a list of 7 and only 4 were still available.
House 1: In a great neighborhood. Beautiful old trees, well manicured lawns. Some kids' bikes. All good signs. $100K below our budget in this neighborhood? Awesome. The house is very cute from the outside. Colonial style, driveway space. We'd been warned that this house needed to be "completely redone". Hmm...wallpaper? New kitchen? Floors? We'll take a look anyway.
OMG.
We spent approximately 10 minutes in the house. Every wall is cracked. The kitchen looks like the original from 1919. The bathroom is only half there. There is a baby grand piano in the front room.
"What do you think this room is used for?"
It had a whole in the floor, windows on 3 sides and a sink in the corner. Nothing else.
"Where does this go to?"
I open a door to what appears to be a pantry off of the kitchen, lined with shelves but with 4 ft. ceilings. Glenn dubs it the "murder room". Don't worry, the house had 2 murder rooms.
We're adventurous but lack the $200,000 it would take to even start fixing this house.
House 2: Also in a great neighborhood. It has great curb appeal and it appears to have been updated recently. I'm optimistic. Anything is better after house 1. We walk in to a recently painted and large living room and dining room with at least 10 ft ceilings. New central heat and air. I'm a little excited. We go through a kitchen with new granite counter tops to the backyard. Here we notice that the back of the house is unpainted. So is the side which is also missing a great deal of the siding. The two parts that don't show from the street. This house is now the "lipstick house". They did a little work to make it look nice, but I'm just too afraid of what they didn't want to fix up and covered up instead. This house is also a shortsale so who knows how long it might take to actually get in to the house. We're here, our Unaccompanied Baggage (express shipment from Japan) is in town, in storage, we want to move in soon.
House 3: Well, we didn't get to see house 3 because the woman who is renting it is sick and won't let us inside. Ok....
House 4: This house is in my favorite neighborhood so far. A very cute, renovated house. I love it from the outside and the pictures I've seen. I'm hoping the 1423 square feet feels bigger than I think it is. It doesn't. I like the house a lot, but I just know that we'll grow out of it too quickly. Also, who renovates 2 bathrooms and puts in 2 showers? We'd have to reduce the already tiny closet in the master bedroom to add a bathtub to bathe dogs/children. We don't have any kids yet, but we're on shore duty now. That's the plan.
So I'm a little bummed. Not that I thought we'd find our dream home on Day 1, but wouldn't that have been awesome? We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around our favorite neighborhoods and checking out a few that I wasn't familiar with. I sent a new list to Jill and we'll get started again on Monday.
In the mean time, we're hunting down and furnished, pet-friendly, short-term-lease-possible apartment. We're hoping we can find a month-to-month rental that doesn't cost us a ton. If it didn't cost us $90/night to stay here (10 days is all the Navy will pay for), I'd just stay here. Free laundry, a gym down the hall? Yes, please. Ok, maybe the 200 square feet might get old.
We got in to town on Friday night and checked in to our hotel room. We're in a Candlewood Suites for the next week for so. It's cozy studio apartment but Stella's slowly getting used to it and not barking at every single noise at night. Slowly. She's worse than a baby right now. We can't leave her back at the hotel alone and we can't take her in to most of the places we're going. She's got a nice little set up in the back of the car now because we have to leave her there from time to time.
We met with our realtor, Jill, on Saturday morning to check out 4 houses. I sent her a list of 7 and only 4 were still available.
House 1: In a great neighborhood. Beautiful old trees, well manicured lawns. Some kids' bikes. All good signs. $100K below our budget in this neighborhood? Awesome. The house is very cute from the outside. Colonial style, driveway space. We'd been warned that this house needed to be "completely redone". Hmm...wallpaper? New kitchen? Floors? We'll take a look anyway.
OMG.
We spent approximately 10 minutes in the house. Every wall is cracked. The kitchen looks like the original from 1919. The bathroom is only half there. There is a baby grand piano in the front room.
"What do you think this room is used for?"
It had a whole in the floor, windows on 3 sides and a sink in the corner. Nothing else.
"Where does this go to?"
I open a door to what appears to be a pantry off of the kitchen, lined with shelves but with 4 ft. ceilings. Glenn dubs it the "murder room". Don't worry, the house had 2 murder rooms.
We're adventurous but lack the $200,000 it would take to even start fixing this house.
House 2: Also in a great neighborhood. It has great curb appeal and it appears to have been updated recently. I'm optimistic. Anything is better after house 1. We walk in to a recently painted and large living room and dining room with at least 10 ft ceilings. New central heat and air. I'm a little excited. We go through a kitchen with new granite counter tops to the backyard. Here we notice that the back of the house is unpainted. So is the side which is also missing a great deal of the siding. The two parts that don't show from the street. This house is now the "lipstick house". They did a little work to make it look nice, but I'm just too afraid of what they didn't want to fix up and covered up instead. This house is also a shortsale so who knows how long it might take to actually get in to the house. We're here, our Unaccompanied Baggage (express shipment from Japan) is in town, in storage, we want to move in soon.
House 3: Well, we didn't get to see house 3 because the woman who is renting it is sick and won't let us inside. Ok....
House 4: This house is in my favorite neighborhood so far. A very cute, renovated house. I love it from the outside and the pictures I've seen. I'm hoping the 1423 square feet feels bigger than I think it is. It doesn't. I like the house a lot, but I just know that we'll grow out of it too quickly. Also, who renovates 2 bathrooms and puts in 2 showers? We'd have to reduce the already tiny closet in the master bedroom to add a bathtub to bathe dogs/children. We don't have any kids yet, but we're on shore duty now. That's the plan.
So I'm a little bummed. Not that I thought we'd find our dream home on Day 1, but wouldn't that have been awesome? We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around our favorite neighborhoods and checking out a few that I wasn't familiar with. I sent a new list to Jill and we'll get started again on Monday.
In the mean time, we're hunting down and furnished, pet-friendly, short-term-lease-possible apartment. We're hoping we can find a month-to-month rental that doesn't cost us a ton. If it didn't cost us $90/night to stay here (10 days is all the Navy will pay for), I'd just stay here. Free laundry, a gym down the hall? Yes, please. Ok, maybe the 200 square feet might get old.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Iowa State Days
Stop 1 on our road trip was a whopping 2.5 hours from Rochester, MN where we spent Sunday night. We spent the afternoon strolling through campus of our alma mater, Iowa State University.
We walked all around campus and checking out the new construction and expansion of campus. ISU has a record enrollment this year; exceeding 29,000 students. Glenn hasn't been back since we graduated and me since 2006. We walked through central campus, my favorite part of campus, and reminisced.
"I had French in that building!"
"Look how nice the new chem building is. We were stuck in the old basement."
We had lunch on Welch ave. the location of our favorite bars and many a drunken college night. The bar where Glenn and I first met, People's, is sadly closed and changed to a restaurant.
Before we left, we look a family picture in front of the campanile, ISU's iconic clock tower, and stocked up on Iowa State gear.
It was not to be nostalgic of our college days. We both had a wonderful college experience an found each other at the end of it.
Luckily, we spent the evening with a close college friend who lives in Des Moines and we talked about our college days even more. All while oogling over her 2 month old baby. I guess times have changed, but it was nice to remember where we started.
We walked all around campus and checking out the new construction and expansion of campus. ISU has a record enrollment this year; exceeding 29,000 students. Glenn hasn't been back since we graduated and me since 2006. We walked through central campus, my favorite part of campus, and reminisced.
"I had French in that building!"
"Look how nice the new chem building is. We were stuck in the old basement."
We had lunch on Welch ave. the location of our favorite bars and many a drunken college night. The bar where Glenn and I first met, People's, is sadly closed and changed to a restaurant.
Before we left, we look a family picture in front of the campanile, ISU's iconic clock tower, and stocked up on Iowa State gear.
It was not to be nostalgic of our college days. We both had a wonderful college experience an found each other at the end of it.
Luckily, we spent the evening with a close college friend who lives in Des Moines and we talked about our college days even more. All while oogling over her 2 month old baby. I guess times have changed, but it was nice to remember where we started.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Happy wedding!
Today is Glenn's little sister's wedding. She is marrying Michael and will be Mrs. Valone very soon.
We're so happy to be here!
We're so happy to be here!
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