Lately

Ok so it has been forever since I have updated this!  I initially started a blog because Kori and I were under the impression that this would be our way of communication... Boy were we wrong.  She sends me her blogs and I update them so that is my excuse for never updating.  I feel with everything that has been going on in our lives lately I should share.  As most of you many know Angel and I just bought our first home!!! It has been a very exciting and fast process for us.  We never really had any intentions of buying a home mainly because we didn't think that we would be able to afford one and a part of me still felt like a kid and I was "too little" still and probably didn't have enough credit built up in order to buy one.  Again I was wrong. We really wanted to buy a new car instead but then once we got talking about it a new house sounded like a lot more fun.  We were living in one of my dad's homes here in St. George and he offered to sell that to us and we were seriously considering it, but then my mom told me that a friend of her was looking in this area and there were lots of homes in the 150k price range that were brand new and bigger than what we were in and advised us to look for something we would be able to grow into a little more comfortably.  At this point we had no idea of a price range we could qualify for so we just started looking at anything below 200.  Right off we found two houses that we fell in love with one being the one we call home now.  Both of them were short sales and had the status of "offer under review".  I moved on but kept coming back to these two houses because they were so amazing to me.  I called a few realtors and it seemed like nobody would really do anything for me until we were pre-approved but I had no idea whether to go through the bank or a mortgage company for it and i didn't want my credit pulled a million times either. So I called the bank and got a rough very low estimate as to what we could get qualified for.  After that I was kind of discouraged so me and Angel decided to save some more money and wait to do anything until February when we would have his car paid off.  Well I still kept looking and I noticed that this house I love was just reduced in price 5K and I thought to myself there is no way thats sold if they just took the price down so i immediately called the realtor on it and he set us up an appointment to look at it the next morning.  The second we walked into this house Angel and I looked at each other and we knew that this was it and we wanted it!! Well we put an offer in that night (the next day really because we looked at in on a Sunday).  But in order to put in the offer we had to go and get pre-approved.  Angel got the name of a guy from First Colony Mortgage from a few people that he worked with so we called him up and I am so glad we did.  I was so nervous that he was going to tell me the same thing the bank did.  But he didn't (turns out we made more than I thought and I gave the bank our income after taxes not before HUGE difference).  They pulled our credit and it was awesome!! They told us that they would basically give us a loan for whatever we felt comfortable paying each month.  Huge relief.  We talked about several different loan options and decided to go the conventional route where we put 5% down had the option of paying off our mortgage insurance right away.  That was so nice because it saved us roughly 140 a month on our house payment!!! Anyways Our house was a short sale so we were told to not expect an answer form the bank on our offer for about 30 days.... talk about torture!! So in the mean time one of me bosses at Costco set me up with his son-in -law to go look at some more houses.  So Labor day we spent all day looking at homes and i think we saw about 8 of them.  Let me just say that once I got home I wanted to cry because none of these houses were anything like the one we had an offer on.  They were beat up, dirty, in sketchy neighborhoods, and would need lots of renovating.  And call me a brat but I really didn't want to give up anything that I have already been living with like nice furnishings, tile, new carpet, walls without holes, updated cabinets, curb appeal ect..  I just felt like if I'm going to be spending my money on this I am damn well going to get what I want and like it.  I know all of these things can be fixed too but at a price and we didn't have a huge budget and a lot of these homes were on the high end of our price range already.  And its funny working with realtors because they try to sell you on anything "its a detached home, it has this much space, this many bedrooms, big yard, laundry room.  Yeah its detached because nobody wanted to build by something so ugly, the bedrooms are like closets, what yard... I see dirt.  Don't get me wrong the realtor i worked with were great but they made second guess the house I already offered on because the soil is bad over here and its a short sale.  For those of you that don't know (because I had no idea) a short sale is when the owner give the house back to the bank to try to sell before they foreclose on it.  So the bank sells it for less than what the owner owes on it so the bank essentially comes out "short".  But anyways I was told that offers go in around listing price and then the bank comes back with some ridiculous number, which may be true in some cases and not true in others.  Our case was the not true.  We heard from the bank the wednesday after Labor Day and our offer was ACCEPTED!!! We were shocked, I thought for sure the bank would have countered us and our realtor told us he was surprised they didn't.  I have never been more excited and relieved in my life!! We were given until the 30th of September to close.  That caught us off guard because first off we weren't expecting to hear back until the 22nd which was 30 days and we needed a little more time to get all of our funds in line for the conventional loan so we asked for and extension and we got it!! New closing Oct 12, 2011.  That month felt like a million years!! .... then came closing week and we needed to get a bank statement so we could get our paperwork off to the underwriter.  Well we needed a statement that contained everything from Sept 8th to Oct 8th and since the 8th of Oct fell on a weekend Monday was the day to go in... but wait the banks were closed for Columbus Day... Seriously?? So that pushed us a day behind which was scary because we needed to close by wed and have funds processed by Friday or our deal would be dead because of the short sale!!! I didn't know that so imagine my stress.. we were able to get another extension... but that didn't make my stress go away because I was so ready to move in that weekend and i didn't want to wait any longer!! Anyway tues I got the statement (3 different times) and they sent it off and wed we found out it wasn't good enough so we had to get another and apparently that one was the winning one (not sure why.. prob because Angel was the one to get it haha).  So from we waited for everyone to rush the paperwork so we could try to make the original deadline.  By some miracle it worked and we closed thursday and got our keys Friday!! I'm sure everyone was as happy it was over as I was because that meant I wasn't calling them every minute haha.  The whole process seemed just too good to be true and too perfect so our little closing bump in the road made sense haha.  I still can't believe that this is all real!! We honestly started looking and put in an offer after looking for two weeks and we were moved in after a month and a half!! We got such an amazing home for a KILLER deal and we couldn't be any happier!!  

Our home!! There is a one level home attached to the side with an older couple living there.  They are cute the woman brought us cookies already!!  The house is 2100 sq ft with 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bath, two car garage, and two level (thats what I was most excited about!!).

 our shower!! Its surprisingly big like 10 people big... party?

  Can't wait to decorate that railing for Christmas!!

 I'm open for decorating ideas!!

 this would make a great baby's room one day!

nook area

This is our home and we are absolutely in love with it.  I am open for decorating tips if anyone has any good ones too!! Especially in my kitchen and dining areas!! Its kind of set up different we have an area for more formal dining and a breakfast nook.  So now i have two tables in this great big open area and i really don't mind it, its just a little different and I don't know if there is a better way to utilize the space so its not "wasted".

kind of hard to see both table areas but this is it... formal is on the right and nook is on the left.



We are pretty lucky!! I never would have dreamt to be able to get a place like this as our first home.  We have enjoyed every minute of it and loved spending our 1 YEAR anniversary here!! We can't believe its been a year already!! We originally wanted to spend our anniversary in either Venice or Australia but we bought a house and we are glad we did!! We can travel anytime.  Our first year of marriage has been incredible!! We have both grown so much in ways I'm sure we weren't expecting.  It has been so easy with Angel. He is the most easy going man I have ever met (besides my dad).  We have so much in common and we get along so well its scary.  I keep hearing that the first year is the hardest because you learn so much about you spouse that you didn't know before.  Let me say yes I have learned a lot about Angel and myself and how we work as a unit and it just makes me love him even more.  If someone would have told me a year ago that i would love him more than i did then I would have said "are you sure that's possible?" It is possible, he is so amazing to me and i couldn't have asked for anything better! I love him with all my heart and now I know that that love only grows deeper and deeper.  I keep waiting for that big fight or that moment to bring me off of cloud nine but it hasn't happened and to be honest I don't think its going to! But thats enough of that sappy love stuff haha. This is what has been going on with us Hope you all enjoy!!