New Things in Life: The House

Rocky will probably be shocked to know I am even blogging. I have a confession to make. I love stalking all of your blogs, and sometimes do it for hours, but when it comes to blogging myself... not so good at it! But, I'm determined, (for today anyways) to be better. Not so much for your sakes, but for mine, because, as Rocky posted last, there are so many new and exciting things in our life! And, I will delve into that now, beginning with the house.

Ok, for the last ten minutes, I have rewritten this paragraph about 6 times. Trying to think, where did it all begin, or what should I start with, and thats just too much work! I'll just share the many ideas that rambled through our heads beginning shortly after we got married, leading up to the home we live in now.

Option A: Purchase some family land from Rocky's parents(his parents and much of his extended family live in Boerne on 300 acres) and buy a trailer, live in that and lot's and lot's of money and eventually build out there. --This didn't work out because we found that many of the trailers we liked were just almost just as expensive as some homes, so, why not just build the home? Which brings us to...

Option B: Purchase some family land next to Rocky's parents (his parents, and much of his extended family live in Boerne on 300 acres) and build a Tilson home. The floor plan was actually "The Marion". We traveled to Bryan, Tx and actually walked thru and video taped it and talked with the people at Tilson several times. If anyone knows my Husband, you know he does not make any decision with out hours and hours of very thorough research and thought. -- This didn't work because knowing we were building on family land, whatever home we built would be permanent, and both being first time home buyers, we weren't sure the things we were going to like in a home vs. not, or even how big our family will be and also, could we get/ afford a home that we could grow comfortably in for the rest of our lives? So then Rocky got in his head what about a garage apartment? Which brings us to...

Option C: family land...build a garage apartment as cheaply as we could. We were going to model it after our own apartment, live in it for 5 years, or so, basically see how cheap we could build it and have it paid off. By then, we would know more of what we actually wanted in a home after we "lived a little" and could build it and also have this great garage apt that if need be our parents could live in, or some one could rent out eventually. We actually loved this idea. Probably the most. Rocky did some research and we got it priced and then went back to option B and decided who cares, build the Tilson, and we would be just fine in it forever. And then, a NORMAL thought came into our head, what if we just bought a home? Which brings us to...

Option D: Buying a home!!! I have great connections with an awesome Realtor... actually my sister! If you ever need one, let me know and I can give you her info. She's great! Anyways, we looked at 3 or 4 houses and we actually found one! It was older, and honestly needed some work, but the idea appealed to Rocky to renovate it, and we eventually convinced ourselves that it would be romantic to be painting at midnight and building this house back up together. So we put a contract on it. And thankfully, due to some roof damage complications, it fell through. We were a little sad, because that meant back to the drawing board, but my sister said she would go back through and pull houses again for us and by some miracle, a home came up in this cute little neighborhood in Boerne. Which brings us to our final choice and decision.

This is the home we looked at buying.

In the Realtors MLS system, typically, never do you find a listing for a home that's not been built or that is being sold by a builder, but our miracle is that ours was. It was an experiment actually by KB, they were in the process of building several spec homes, in which they had a team put together several different homes with finishes they thought would sell the best and fit those homes the best. Which normally the buyers go and choose all of there own finishes. So, we quickly walked through the model and hurried and put a contract on the house, not knowing any of the finishes. Well...it just so happens that every last finish, down to the door knobs are what we would have chosen. And we now are living the American dream in this darling house in Boerne!

Rocky and I say it all the time, but we know we are so blessed. We are thankful for these blessings and that we have the opportunity to have a roof over our heads. We know there are many less fortuate than us and that we need to keep trying everyday to be worthy of these blessings the Lord gives us. Well, I know that was long and drawn out, but that was more for me to remember the journey we went through to buy our home then for you. :)

New Things in Life

It is 10:02 p.m. and I have to go to bed. I feel the need to write something here. Life has definitely changed for us recently. For a recap of the last 7 months for Rebecca and I:

Got Married, went on a honeymoon, Rebecca changed jobs, we lived in an apartment, went house shopping, decided a house wasn't in the cards for us yet, Rocky survived 2 rounds of layoffs, changed positions in his job, we went house shopping, bought a house, Moved from apartment to house, sold my truck (see previous entry), bought an SUV, bought Rebecca a car w/ air conditioning, bought a puppy.

My Dad summarized it like this, "you got married, sold your truck, bought a house, bought a minivan(referring to the 3rd row seat SUV), and bought a puppy. Looks like you are falling right in line and the only thing left is to have babies."

He basically hit the highlights.

We could write volumes about any of these topics, and I am sure we will be hitting some of these soon(particularly the house, cars, and Ruby our puppy).

Rebecca and I talk everyday about how blessed we are. We don't understand how our lives can be so good. Why do we have everything we want? Certainly there are lots of more deserving people out there. We try to live the gospel to the best of our ability and we see the hand of the Lord blessing us everyday. We are trying to be worthy of the blessings we receive, but how do you repay a blessing. We are truly unprofitable servants. We can attribute every good thing in our lives to the Lord blessing us for our clean and honest living.