The Alberts are Homeowners! (long)

Well, friends & family....it's official! We closed on our first home last Thursday and are officially homeowners! We cannot tell you what an amazing feeling it is to know that all our hard work and patience has paid off. The house is amazing and is already starting to feel like home. So, let me catch you up.

Wednesday 2/27
-We did our final walk through of the home with our Realtor and it really sunk in that this is going to be our house! The seller's stuff was gone and the house was just waiting for us! We didn't get a wink of sleep that night due to excitement and nerves!

Thursday 2/28
-We arrived at the title office at 10am for closing. We drove separately because our vehicles were full of the first load of boxes to bring into the house! Our Realtor was pulling in to the title office right behind us, so we were able to go in together. The sellers arrived shortly after we did and their Realtor was the father of the husband. My first impression of the sellers was that they were going to be really snobby & stuck up b/c they arrived in their Lexus, dressed head to toe in designer clothes and were very quiet. But by the end of closing, they had really opened up to us and were very friendly. They gave us the scoop on the neighbors (who are mostly Purdue people!), our HOA, local shopping and a few other tips. It turns out, that they purchased one of their parent's home in Carmel for a "good deal" and it was really going to give them & their 2 kiddos more space. They made it clear that they really loved their old home, but just couldn't pass up the space. The wife, Allison and I exchanged email addys & phone #'s so that we could stay in touch...that meant a lot to me :o)
-So, after closing at the title office we drove to our *new* home and had our first meal there...Wendys! It was only appropriate that we did this as we wrote up our first bid for the home at Wendys! After lunch we unpacked both our trucks and starting storing through boxes. As much as we would have liked to, we didn't spend the night on Thursday because I had to be at the hospital at 6am Friday morning. So, we made it an early night and reluctantly drove back to the townhome.

Friday 2/29
-While I was at the hospital teaching all day, Cory singlehandedly cleared out our rental storage unit, which we have had since the day he moved in! That space was SO FULL of stuff, mostly holiday bins & wedding gifts...but man, did it feel like Christmas to come home and see all our stuff in our new home. I was amazed at all the work he did...way to go baby!

Saturday 3/1
- Our first full day at the house! We had a full "to-do" list that day and were able to knock off a lot of things. Cory tapped into his handy streak, no doubt passed down to him by his father who is a master handy man! He changed all the door locks & deadbolts, tightened all the drawer & cabinet knobs/handles, set up our cable & wireless network, hung curtains over the sliding glass door in the kitchen that leads to the screened in porch, fixed the "lazy susan" in the kitchen which was sticking and fixed a towel rack in one of the bathrooms. I spent all my time in the kitchen on Saturday, replacing all the shelf & pantry liner (which was a huge job since the kitchen is SO BIG!), I did a lot of dishes b/c I have this thing about not wanting to put anything away until it's clean, did a small grocery run to keep snacks & water in the house, got soap, TP, towels and floor rugs set up...so I did a lot of the small things that day while keeping the dishwasher going.
-We ordered pizza for dinner from the Pizza Hut right down the road and just marveled at how much we were able to get done. During the day we made 1 trip to Wal-Mart, 1 trip to Bed Bath and Beyond and 1 trip to Lowes, phew! We didn't spend the night in anticipation that we would both be sore and want to sleep in our own bed, rather than a blow up mattress!

Sunday 3/2
- We met our first neighbor! She graciously welcomed us to the neighborhood and was anxious to get to know us. One of the first questions she asked was if Cory and I had any children...we told her not yet, but hopefully soon, and she got a very curious grin on her face and said, "Well, the couple who lived here before you didn't have any children when they moved in, and by the time they moved out, they had two!" She then went on to tell us that our new home has "good karma" and she could tell that it would bring us much happiness. What a great way to welcome us to the neighborhood!
- We continued to do a lot of little things around the house. We picked out new knobs for the upstairs guest bathroom and Cory installed those, we took down a wall paper mural in one of the spare bedrooms, decided on the paint colors for our bedroom, the guest bedroom and our den, we emptied out the storage unit behind our townhome as well. So, there is a growing pile of boxes in our garage, but as soon as we decide on our furniture and buy garage shelving, that will be resolved.

We won't be doing much at the house during the week since Cory has returned back to work (after recovering from having Shingles) and I am busy with clinicals & grading. But we will be painting this weekend and continuing to move more boxes over. While we don't have an official move-in date yet, we're going to shoot for Sunday 3/16 as our goal. Thankfully, we don't have very many heavy or large items to move, but if anyone wants to help out or even come over to hang with us, you're totally welcome to! We'll send out our new address & new home phone number to everyone once we get closer to our move in date.

I don't have any new pictures to post since the house is still pretty bare, but as we move more and more over, I'll post about our progress!