Homeowners :)

We started talking about buying a house about 4 months ago.  We knew we were going to be starting our process to pregnancy and our apartment kept raising the rent, so looking for a house seemed like the best option.  We started saving some money and then started looking for a house in May.  It didn't take us too long to find one that we thought would be perfect for us, we made and offered and it was accepted!  We started the process of getting our loan secured and today we closed on our first house!  We are so excited!

Unlocking the door to our house!

The house is in a cute little neighborhood in South Austin called Rancho Alto.  We fell in love with this neighborhood immediately, for several reasons.  First, it isn't a huge neighborhood and every time we drove through people we out walking their dogs or playing with their children and it looked friendly.  Secondly, we knew we wanted to stay in south austin somewhere and it was an affordable neighborhood with really cute houses.  Third (and most importantly), the streets are named after members of the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey Team (the story featured in the movie Miracle).  Our house is on O'Callahan Dr. and neighboring streets are: Jim Craig Ct., Herb Brooks Dr., Craig Patrick Way, Eruzione Dr, McClannahan Dr., etc.  Cool, right?  Well, you probably don't think so but we think its awesome!

Our house is 5 bedrooms (so a bit bigger than we wanted, but that just means there is room for visitors!) with 3 full bathrooms.  We were looking for a house with a bedroom and bathroom downstairs (for mom) but not the master downstairs.  That is hard to find.  This house had it plus 4 additional bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs!  It already had an updated kitchen too!  Plus a really good sized fenced-in backyard for Marcie!  I think she is gonna really love her new yard!

Logan already loves the stairs!

The upstairs hasn't been painted before, so it's very neutral.  I hope to get some color to at least some of  the rooms before we move in. 

Logan is checking that vent for us.

Peek-a-boo from the pantry :)

Toasting our new house with some Sparkling Cider :)

I think Shawn is a bit overexcited!

Our current lease isn't up for about 6 more weeks, so we will have plenty of time to get the house ready before we move in, plus we can move stuff over slowly.  The living room and dining room are painted yellow with one dark red wall, so that whole area needs to be neutralized prior to moving furniture in!  We will be buying new living room stuff eventually, so for now I don't want to add any color downstairs because I'd rather wait until we choose a new couch and things so I can coordinate the colors.  I've been watching HGTV for a long time and now I will get to use some of the stuff I've learned!  We'll start by buying the essentials (mower, fridge, ceiling fans) then cleaning and painting.  We'll post updates as we progress!

A Body? What?

Yesterday morning I woke up, got ready for work, took Marcie out then started my drive.  All this before 6am.  As I turned out of my apartment complex, I noticed a police car with the lights on at the next street just sitting there.  I slowed down because I wasn't sure if he was waiting to turn or whatever.  He just sat there so I drove on.  At the next intersection there is a stop sign.  There were 2 police cars blocking the insection, stopping all cars coming in or going out.  Our apartment complex is in a housing community called Travis Country.  It's a really nice, pretty expensive community.  I waited my turn (which took like 10 minutes!) and the police officer asked me where I was headed this morning.  As I was sitting in my car with a lunchbox and large bag of nursing supplies, plus wearing my scrubs, I probably looked a little irritated by the question, but I said, "work."  She and the other police officer that were with her commented that a lot of people passing by were headed to hospitals.  I commented that there isn't really anywhere else people go so freaking early on Sunday!  Anyway...there proceeded to ask for my ID and take down my name, address and phone number.  Then they asked if I had seen or heard anything suspicious this morning.  I said no and was on my way.  Weird right?

So after I go to work (late of course) I looked it up on the news...apparently overnight a security guard had noticed something suspicous and called the police.  The police came and around 4:30am found a body in a park in Travis Country!!  Yikes!  They haven't said yet what happen or it they think it is murder, but they weren't letting anyone in or out all morning that didn't live in the community.  Crazy, right?  Austin a pretty safe place and for this to happen so close to our apartment is kinda freaky.  Shawn said that when he left for work close to 10am, there were still a ton of cops and a helicopter too!

When I got home I found the story on the news website.