our new house!!!

We are in the house and unpacked. No pictures on the walls, but maybe this week.  Most of the projects are done and between Jeff, my mom and I all working hard, the house looks great!  We still have odds and ends to work on but for the most part we are settled into the house.

It seems crazy that we've been here almost a month, but it has totally flown by!

The following is the story of getting settled:

We bought a foreclosure.  Great for us because we decided basically over a weekend that instead of renting we were going to buy.  We had come down for a few days to look at rentals while Jeff had reserve duty and ended staying 2 extra days and putting in an offer on a house.  Amazing how the Lord totally changed the game plan on me but I'm not complaining.  It has been a huge blessing so far.  The other great thing was that we could close fairly quickly and get to work on the many projects that needed to be done.  With the intention of getting as much done as possible before Jeff started classes.  We didn't quite make it, but my mom came down for a visit and helped get lots of stuff done.

So, first and foremost was getting the AC fixed.  The afternoon we got our keys it is over a 100 (the truck registered 115 at one point) and the house thermostat said it was 99 inside.  It was a fairly easy fix, it just need coolant added (alot of it) and the great part of living in a HUGE city is they make very late house calls :).  It was soo hot in the house that Daisy was panting and whining, wondering why in the world we brought her to such a HOT place.  And we thought Corpus was hot!  Added to that, the fire alarm was beeping, needing a new battery and of course it was the one at the height of our ceiling 12-13ft-ish.  So Jeff made a quick run to Lowes to get a ladder that would reach it.  Our stuff was in storage in Corpus so after borrowing many tools from family, we still needed one to get us through.

Once the AC was fixed, we painted every room in the house - it desperately needed a new coat of paint.  There were a few holes that needed to patch (Jeff did a great job fixing them) and other miscellaneous things came up to be fixed.  And after a week in the house, our furniture was delivered from storage.  We had quite a bit of things broken in this move which was a disappointment but oh well, I guess that's what insurance is for.  And most of our stuff came undamaged.

We've had many little projects to fix: a hole in the roof from a missing roof vent cap, water coming in the dryer vent, replacing window screens (which my mom is AWESOME at), baseboards to replace, kitchen cabinets to stain, ceiling fans to hang and so forth.  My mom came to visit for a few days and goodness did we get lots of projects done.  She is a workhorse and knows how to fix just about anything.  She really helped us get the house feeling like it was ours.  She helped us get sooo much done and was a huge blessing.  Thank you, Mom!

So now we just have to redo some landscaping outside and install a garage door opener and we should be mostly done with the projects.  I'm sure more will come up, but the initial list is fairly exhausted for now.

There's more to share but I'll wait until later.  Hopefully, I'll get pixs posted soon so you can see the inside.