Officially in Escrow!!!

We have been looking for a house since we got to Chico since the market has been so good.  It's a great time to buy, and we didn't want any great deals to pass us by! Through our looking process, there's been some ups and downs.  We first found the house of our dreams!! It wasn't without projects, but it was a beautiful house on 2 acres.  We were outbid and the house went for over asking price.  I think I cried. Second house we found was on 1 acre.  It needed lots of work. It could have been a great investment, but again, we were outbid.  Finally, we found this house on 39 Forest Creek Circle.  It's a foreclosure, and the former owners have made it known that they were not happy about being foreclosed on (holes in the wall, missing door knob, broken window, etc.)  The benefits of this house are that its way under market value because its been trashed.  It's less than a mile to Bidwell Park, which is a huge point of resale.  It's on 1/4 of an acre and is over 1800 square feet. Once fixed up, it will sell easily. Also, its very centrally located in a nice quiet neighborhood. We'd love a house out in the country some day, but this house, once fixed up, will surely make us money and allow us to buy our dream house.  Our plan is to live in it for 5 years, give or take.

SO, we found out from the bank yesterday that they had accepted our offer! We have a 45 day escrow, so here we go!!  The pictures below show the house's "character" (I mean all the wild colors they chose for paint....we have some work to do).

As you can see, the landscaping needs a little bit of help.  The backyard is worse, although there is a pomegranate tree and an orange tree! 

 This is one of the bedrooms (it has 4 bedrooms). Yes, it's painted black!! Complete with a Rockband sticker. Oh dear. You can't tell here, but the carpet is.....well....... lets just say you wouldn't want to walk on it with bare feet out of fear of contracting a disease. =) Got to love it!

This is the view when you walk in the front door.  Straight ahead is the living room, to the right is an office, and down the hall to the left are all the bedrooms. Even from this view you can see rooms with 3 different colors...ha!

The kitchen is in decent shape.  We will eventually tear out the lovely tile, and probably re-face the cabinets. All in all, the kitchen is pretty decent.

 Oh the mustard colored laundry room.  Again I ask myself, really?  Mustard colored???

This is actually the dining room. It's huge.  I'm not sure what we are going to put in here yet. We don't even have a dining room table or enough furniture to fill up half of the house.  Ha!  It will be a bit empty for a while. This room is in good shape with new laminate flooring.

 Another bedroom, complete with tan and red walls. Paint please?

 Alas, the dark DARK blue room with a broken window. Such a beauty. We'll have to fix this immediately.

This is the hall bathroom.  It needs some help.  The only thing in decent shape are the floors and the toilet.  We'll eventually replace the tub, counter-top/sink, and cabinets.

My favorite bedroom: the hotdog bedroom.  Who wouldn't want to paint their room ketchup and mustard colors???

Master bathroom.  We think we'll do some major remodeling here- maybe knock out a wall if we can. The shower is covered in black mold, so we'll need to replace it......and a lot of other things in this room.

Master bedroom - colors are actually somewhat normal here: tan.  We'll still be repainting. The whole house needs some patches. Thank goodness my brother David patches and paints professionally for a living!!  Yippee for borrowing his paint sprayer!!!

Thanks for rejoicing in our new purchase.  Now the next challenge...making it through escrow. We'll keep you updated.

Weekend in the Bay

This past weekend Dave and I took at trip to the Bay Area along with Cassie and Bill.  Our purpose of the trip - rack out our car!  Bills brother, Peter, manages a store in San Jose called Rack N Road.  Anything you can put on the outside of a car, they can do.  Since Peter is moving to Europe permanently, we thought we'd take advantage of the "family" discount he offered us. Go big or go home was our motto, so we went crazy! We were never going to get a 50% off discount like this again!  We got a new racks, a Thule cargo box, a kayak rack, and a four-bike hitch-mounted bike rack. Oh, and we got a hitch installed! Total savings, over $1,000, not including the free installation we received.

Since we needed to bring our car to the bay for installation, we decided to make the most of the weekend.  Saturday night we went to an Oakland A's vs. Boston Red Sox baseball game, and on the way home on Sunday, we stopped at the Jelly Belly factory.  It was a full weekend, but a good one!

Labor Day Stay-Cation

As Dave reminded me today, it's common to do a stay-cation rather than a vacation if the time and money do not allow.  Well, this weekend was busy, but we decided to take a day trip to the flumes and enjoy our one day stay-cation.

A locals secret, the flumes offer tons of fun. Parking at the hospital in Paradise leads to a trail head that takes you back to old logging flumes built in the 40's. A two mile hike on top of the flumes leads to a steep decent down into the Feather River into my favorite swimming hole of all time. The water was cold, but the day made for the perfect stay-cation.

My New Job

We have received blessing after blessing from God, and this job is no exception.  An old friend I used to be in a Bible study with owns his own web development company. His business is growing and he now needs an assistant to take care of a lot of the administrative stuff. Funny thing, I needed a job. The way we connected was a bit unconventional, but I guess it is on par with the current times: facebook.  I had posted that I was looking for a job in Chico.  Ryann, Jason the business owner's wife, saw my posting on facebook and mentioned to her husband that I would be a good fit for the job.  A few emails later I was filling out an I-9 form. Check out the business: www.sitehatchery.com

This job has its perks. First of all, I can work anywhere - at home on my couch, or at Starbucks.  Lately, Starbucks has been my choice. Jason gives me a Starbucks card to use when I'm working = awesome!

The second perk is that I get to work with Jason.  He's an awesome guy who's very gifted and talented.  He's releasing me to do a lot of fun stuff like test websites, accounting and billing, and write marking material for his websites in development.

The third perk is that the flexibility allows me to focus on my school work while still earning some extra money.  Thanks Jason for offering me the job!

Illegal? We sure had fun!

Dave and I were enjoying our steak dinner with red wine we had bought from a vineyard in Paso Robles, and we just didn't want it to end.  I was in need of some fresh air and the dog was in need of a walk.  So, what's wrong with combining the two? Dave and I really enjoy walking the neighborhood behind our duplex. It's quiet and dog friendly. It's off the beaten path, so it rarely gets any traffic.  The wine tasted so good, we decided to finish it on our walk with the dog!

First Day of School

And he's off!  Dave's first day of school is today. He's a bit nervous seeing that one of the teachers informed him that the 8th graders like to fight on the first day. Time to jump in with both feet and learn the ropes!  I'm so proud of him for all he's accomplished. So, I packed his lunch, made his morning tea in a travel mug, we prayed together, and he drove away!  I snuck in this picture as he was looking in the mirror making sure his tie was straight. GOOD LUCK DAVE!

Trading the Truck, for a Car

He did it. He made the trade. He relinquished his baby for fuel efficiency. Dave has a 30 minute commute to work at his new job, and the money spent in gas just didn't make sense, or cents, whichever way you look at it. For all of you nay sayers who think the woman made him do it, I can put your accusations to rest. It was his idea. I am really proud of Dave for making a selfless sacrifice for the betterment of our finances. Since we bought a Toyota Rav-4 a month ago, we have a vehicle with 4WD, making the need for a truck obsolete. It was time, so we made the plunge.

We love the new Prius. It gets 41mpg on the freeway and over 50mpg in the city. It really beats the 16mpg on the freeway and 12mpg in the city the truck was getting. We'll use the car as much as we can to save on gas. The car was previously owned by butte county air quality control, its only owner. It was meticulously maintained, and we are thankful for the blessing from God.

When I went to pick up the car this morning, time at the DMV was required to pay for the registration, transfer the title, and get new plates. I haven't been to the DMV in a while, and let me tell you, it was a cultural experience.  The following were my observations:

1. All 20 workers seem to be middle-aged women with deep smoker voices.
2. The man who took me on my driving test STILL works there, and he looks EXACTLY the same.
3. They now have posted a sign that says they can't receive gifts or gratuities - apparently people were bribing them to cut in line. Can't say the thought didn't cross my mind.
4. All forms are now in English and in Spanish
5. They give driving tests to 90 year old women who can't even walk.
6. They now sell beanie babies.
7. Although shirts and shoes are required, apparently unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts that reveal large, hairy, overweight bellies are acceptable as well.

I guess I have a few things to learn!