The Big Move

I want to start out saying that I am ever so glad that the whole home buying process is over and done. What a crazy nightmare! It totally took us by surprise because when we bought our first house things went so smoothly and it was easy. They aren't kidding when they say things have tightened up. To start, they wouldn't let us count the money we receive from renting our townhouse out as income, only as debt. So even though we can easily afford our house on just Penn's income, our debt-to-income ratio was way too high because they were factoring in another house payment. Didn't seem to matter that we were putting 20% down on the house. Things did end up working out, but it just kept seeming like we'd get over one hurdle and another one would pop up. The most stressful part came at the end when we found out due to some weird law, our closing would be delayed a day. So 2 days before we are set to head out to Texas, the sellers are saying they won't move out until the following Monday when in fact they were under contract to move out on Friday. It was this huge back and forth (which I still believe was mostly fabricated by our realtors). We had so many arrangements made including truck rental, hotel reservations, my parents flight home, etc. It was crazy stressful. Our realtor was telling us to not be surprised if it ended up in mediation. We finally got word on Thursday night that they would be out on Friday. Phew!

We headed out bright and early Friday morning with Penn (he flew home to drive back with me), Karlee, and Widget in tow. I wasn't sure what to expect from either Karlee or Widget. Both did fantastic! Best $20 I spent was on a mounting device for the headrest that I could put my iPad into so she could watch movies. We rented a few off iTunes and that kept her happy the whole time. We drove from 730 am until 1000 pm with a few stops here and there. We stayed the night in Salina, KS. Karlee was wired and ended up bunking with us in our bed because the crib they had was way too small for her.

We started up bright and early again on Saturday and pulled into Little Elm, TX at about 230 pm. The drive really wasn't terrible. Only bad part for me was I had a cold so it wasn't much fun being in a car for that long, but we all survived and were greeted by my brother and his family at our new house.

We got everything moved into the house really quickly thanks to a bunch of guys from our new ward showing up to help. Even during conference weekend. We're just about unpacked. Just have a couple of rooms to paint and a few furniture pieces to purchase and we're set. We love the house and all the space!