And so... now it's August. When did that happen?
A lot has happened with our little family in the last three months. I'm sure I won't cover it all here, but hey, this isn't my journal, and most of it would probably bore you anyway.
In June our adorable Zoey turned one and we had a nice little family celebration. We gave her a slice of birthday pie (tradition), and she devoured it. We had a small get-together with some friends at a local park and enjoyed cupcakes and ice cream. It was nice and simple. Zoey was spoiled, of course (not by us though, mind you) and now has way more toys than she will ever need.
Zoey with her new baby doll
In July we took a week-long road trip to Oklahoma with Zoey in tow. The drive was 18 hours each way. We started at 7pm and drove straight through the night, only stopping for gas and breakfast. It was nice to meet Gavin's extended family and to spend some time together unimpeded by work. Overall, it was pretty chill (excluding the weather), and I'm glad we went. I'm amazed at how well Zoey did-- we drove through 5 states!-- and it was just nice to take a break from the everyday hustle and bustle.
Our biggest news is that the home buying process has begun. Man, has it been an eye-opening experience. I feel like we're taking a college course together, complete with a new dictionary and a side course on finances. How are we doing? Well, let's just say we bombed the mid-term. Ouch.
Pretty house we didn't get
See, we found this amazing home, for an amazing price, in an awesome neighborhood. We offered almost the maximum we had been prequalified for, and waited with baited breath to see what would happen. Lo and behold, the house came through for us! An investor bought it and wanted to flip it to us-- new paint of our choosing included! It sounded too good to be true
And we were right.
We met with our mortgage advisor to consult her on the break-down of monthly expenses and were astonished at how much more we would have to spend: besides principle and interest, property tax and HOA fees (which we were counting on) we hadn't realized that the website we were using was omitting mortage insurance and hazard insurance. Oh, and of course there would be utilities-- about 5 times what we pay now, so... ouch.
Knowing that we could have afforded it (if we stretched out budget to the max every month and never had any kind of accident or ever decided to have any more kids) made it all the more tragic when we retracted our offer...
on my birthday.
Yeah. So there that went, as did all our dreams of being able to afford a permanent home any time soon. As for the up-side, we already have about a 5% downpayment saved up for a modest home, and are working to save up much more. Also, the learning process has been (albeit somewhat painful) very enlightening and definitely enabling. We have a goal. We understand what we need to do, and we have the motivation to do it.
On a side note, I'm totally looking forward to the whole Second-Coming/Millenium-no-money-needed-because-everyone-lives-the-law-of-consecration era. I hate money.
The weather is starting to cool down, and I am looking forward to the change that always seems to come with the weather. Still, when I step back and look at it all, life is good. We are so blessed in so many different ways, and I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
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