New House! New House! New House!

We got the house!  It's totally reserved for us!  It is the future home of the Smallwood fam! Let's just take a moment to process this exciting news!!


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Ok, so that other guy never showed up.  I promise I didn't pray for him to get a flat tire. He just never came because it's not his house. :)  We had about a 1/2 hour of waiting for all on the list who might come.  They were too nice, we were there 20 minutes early.  So the suspense lasted about 50 minutes!  Then, they called names on the list in order, and that's it!  It's reserved for us!   All I wanted to do was scream and cry and be excited but we had to then go sign papers and write a deposit, etc.  That was hard.  The lady was talking but it sounded like "wah wah wah" to me.  All I could think about was how cool it was!!!

Here's the full story... or skip to the pics!! :)

It's been a journey, let me tell you!  There were many times when we wanted to buy a house, when it seemed like everyone we knew was buying cute homes all around us.  Of course, looking back, I'm soooooooooo glad everything went the way it did- but at the time it was hard.

A couple years after we got married we started thinking about starting a little family.  Yes, us in a third floor apartment.  We had been married a couple years, time to MOVE ON and buy a little home.  Well, that wasn't going to happen.  Like many at that time, I was ready to do whatever it took to get into a house.  We actually could get into a house.  Rich was doing well in his job, they were offering 100% financing, let's do it!  One problem, my hubby was in the mortgage business.  No one could know what was going to happen, but he kept saying it wasn't a good time, houses were at their peak, yada yada yada.  I thought maybe he was just very scared to buy since it would be our first house (VERY scary).  No house for us.  So, we found a cute apartment (1st floor, no one above us) and we loved it.

What a blessing that we didn't buy a home.  We would have been one of the many to lose it!  Rich's job went south pretty quickly with the mortgage business, and so did his health.  We were dealing with a lot in the next couple years.

Fast forward, and Rich has a new job and prices are lower.  New problem.  They aren't offering 100% financing.  We needed a down payment.  We have no down payment.  We are first time home buyers, no money to put down.  No house for us.

Fast forward again.  We are still in our little apartment.  Turns out you can start a family in a little apartment and it rocks!  We can clean it top to bottom in 40 minutes (more time to play!), and we are all always together and we love that.  Bailey can run around and I can hear her no matter where she is.  It has never really felt too small.  It's been a great place to start a family!

Now the toys are getting bigger, a yard for Bailey is sounding more appealing. Prices are lower and so are interest rates, so now it's a good time to buy.  Exciting right?  New problem. Turns out there are so many repos and investers are buying them up with CASH before we even have a chance to make an offer.  One realtor told me within an hour of posting she has 5 offers easy.  Crazy! Discouraging!  Once again I thought, "no house for us."

Then we landed on the perfect community with a perfectly priced 3 bdrm house. Everything about it feels like this house was made for us.  We fell in love with the home and community right away.  And today is the day we reserved our first house!  We get to move in September/October! 

OVERWHELMED.  OVERWHELMED. OVERWHELMED.
We are SO excited and amazed at how good God is to us.  All those years when we watched our friends buy homes and made the best of living in an apartment were stepping stones to the awesome plan that he had for us. There are no words to express how amazed I am at how God orchestrated all this.

Ok, let me introduce you to our future home!  It looks just like this- colors, flagstone and all- EXACTLY the look we would have chosen. 2 Words:  FRONT PORCH!!!!!

Here is the cul-de-sac it will be on.  Yes, that's right a cul-de-sac! 

But wait, it gets better... When you walk to the end of the culdesac, this is what you see to the left.

And THIS is what you see to the right!

Tot lot and lake, RIGHT by our house!
 I told you, it's amazing how perfect this house is for us!

Do you see the ducks?  That's right, ducks.  Told you it was meant to be ours!

But wait, there's more.  This is the clubhouse across the lake, part of the community. There is a park, "splash park", paddle boats you can take out on the lake, and a pool.  Anyone going to come visit us?

This is us putting the "reserved" button on the map.

And here is our lot, all ready for our future home.  Here we go!

Feels like we're dreaming.  Soon, we will have our own little house!! :) Ahhhhhhh!!!!!