In case you haven’t noticed I haven’t been doing  a lot of posting lately.  I don’t know why.  Most days I just don’t want to.  And I can’t think of anything to say.  I know I used to post every single day- what in the world did I talk about?  For some reason these days when I have few minutes free I want to get on Facebook rather than my blog.  But I thought it was time for an update.

A few weeks ago when we went to look at houses again we didn’t find anything we wanted.  So since it had been a few weeks since we put an offer on the first house we liked, and that house was still available, we decided to put in another offer.  We went a little higher than we did the first time- and the sellers came down a little from the price they were stuck at before and we found an amount we agreed on.

Since we are closing on our house that we currently own weeks before we’ll be able to move into the new house we are going to be staying with my parents for a couple of weeks and storing our stuff in their garage.  So, 2 weeks ago when we went back to have the inspection done we decided to rent a medium sized truck and move part of our stuff to get some of the move done ahead of time.

Hailey was thrilled to see “the big lellow truck” in the driveway.  And even more thrilled when she got to jump around in the back of the truck.

Here is Rich with his lovely big blue dog that he won several years ago at an amusement park.  I was really hoping the dog would not be making the move with us- so imagine my surprise when I saw where the dog was riding.

The inspection went well- the house is in good condition.  Now we are just waiting for everything else to go through smoothly.  This weekend we will be moving out of our house and staying with my parents while we wait for the closing on the new house.

So I am busy this week working on packing up the rest of our house.  And also busy worrying about the swine flu.  What have you been up to?

Today I am thinking of those who were effected on April 16th 2007.  I am thankful that my family was safe that day.  I pray for those families who lost a loved one and for those whose lives were forever changed.

…until we close on our house.  And we do not have a new house lined up to move into.

We have been staying at my parents house again, looking for a new house to buy.  We found one we liked and put an offer on it.  At the same time someone else was making an offer for the same house- and it was a better offer.  So, once again we lost out on a house we wanted.  We have looked and looked and I don’t think there are any other houses left for us to look at. 

Today we are heading back home.  We have some paperwork to take care of for the closing of our house and a few other things to take care of.  I am going to get lots of packing done.  Then we will be heading back to my parents house to do some more house hunting.

Apparently we sold our house in buyers market and we are trying to buy a house in a sellers market.  And it is soooo frustrating and discouraging.

Hailey turned 2 1/2 this week and I’ll be posting about that as soon as I have a few minutes to write that post.  Have a great weekend and a Happy Easter!

Once again we are going house hunting this weekend.  You probably know that a couple of weeks ago we spent about a week going house hunting.  We found a house that we really liked but could not get the sellers to come down in their price.  So we decided to walk away and keep looking.  I really wanted the house and it was hard to walk away from it, but the price the sellers wanted was not a fair price when considering recent sales in the same neighborhood.  And the fact that the house is still for sale and is holding an open house again this weekend (it’s been for sale since December) confirms to me that the price is too high.  I do have the mention that the area we are looking in is not like much of the country- it is not a buyers market where we are looking.  Houses tend to come up for sale- and if the price is good it sells very quickly because there isn’t a whole lot of choice.

So, we have been watching for houses the last couple of weeks and have a big list of houses we want to see this weekend.  Our real estate agent has appointments set up for us for most of the weekend and we are really praying that we are going to find the right house this weekend.  Our home we are living in now will be closing on May 6th.  Since that is only a  little over a month away I am getting really nervous that we might not find a house in time.  I know the right house is out there for us and we just have to be patient until we find it.

Once we find the perfect house I will need to do all of the fun address change stuff including have to order checks.  I may go with a company like Vista Print where I can order custom checks.  I saw some really cute checks with puppies on them- soooo adorable!

But, first things first!  Pray that we can find the perfect house for us this weekend.

This house hunting thing is frustrating! 

We spent about a little over a week at my parents house looking for a new house.  It seems like there are a lot of crazy people who have priced their homes really high.  I thought this was supposed to be a buyers market- but in the area we are looking- there are plenty of buyers and not a whole lot of sellers.

So we looked and looked.  And every day we ended up disappointed.  And then the next day I would start out hopeful again about the houses we were going to see- and end up disappointed again.  Finally we decided we would just head back home and come back in a couple of weeks to look again. 

Then our agent called to say that there were a couple of houses she found and thought we would like.  So, we decided to stay one more day and we ended up finding a great house.  The house is actually in the same neighborhood we lived in before we moved away 6 years ago.  The house we liked had been for sale since December and we couldn’t figure out why it had been for sale for so long.  Everything was absolutely perfect. 

Our agent checked out some comparable homes in the same neighborhood to see what they had sold for and we decided on the price we wanted to pay.  Then we made an offer that was lower, hoping we’d be able to get the sellers to meet us in the middle.  They came back with a counter offer, not much lower than their asking price.  There have been other houses in the neighborhood that have sold for the price they want- but those houses had updated kitchens, new appliances, and many other updates that this house does not have.  We raised our offer a bit but not to the level they wanted.  So they decided they weren’t coming down anymore and we decided we weren’t going up anymore.  Now we know why the house has been for sale for so long- they refuse to come down in their price.

Anyways- we are back to square one.  It’s definitely frustrating.  Right now we are at home packing up our house since we have our closing date here in a little over a month.  We’ll be heading back down to my parents house again (thank you sooooo much Mom and Dad for everything you have done for us!!) so we can do some more house hunting.  I am praying that the perfect house for us will be going up for sale in the next week or so.

We have been pretty busy lately and I haven’t had much time for blogging at all.  So- what have we been up to for the last week?

One day last week we went to one of our favorite local restaurants.  Once a week they have family night with games, face painting and balloons for the kids.  We love the food and Hailey loves the fun.  Since we won’t be able to go anymore after we move we have to get our fill now.  When we went last week Hailey decided she wanted one of these huge balloons:

Hailey loves this balloon!

We’ve been very busy packing up our house to get ready to move.  And we have been very busy trying to find a new house.  We’ve been staying with my parents while going house hunting.  They have been sooooo great- watching Hailey for us so we can look without dragging a 2 year old around with us.  So far we haven’t found anything we like at all.  It’s been a bit discouraging.

The weather has been great so the other day we enjoyed a fun afternoon at the park.

Hailey loves the swings.

She enjoyed digging the sand box.

But the slides are her favorite!

We have one more day of doing some house hunting and then we have to head back home.  So we are really hoping and praying to find something.

And that’s my summary of the last week.