Welcome Home, Welcome Home

Sunday we moved from our silly little hotel room to our luxury (relatively speaking) hotel suite.  We now have two closets, a bathroom with separate vanity, a kitchenette, and about 20 extra square feet of space.  I spent Sunday morning moving our stuff over from the other room and then unpacking.  Up until now we were living out of suitcases hopeful that we would not be staying in our little cave for long.  Now I have everything unpacked and organized so we will be ready to welcome the boys "home" this weekend.

Monday we headed back down to Olympia to scout out some other neighborhoods and make sure we had all the information we needed prior to making any final home decisions.  By 4pm we locked in to a 3.2% APR for a home loan and at 6pm we bought our house.  Well, technically we just had a "mutually agreed upon offer" but essentially we told the builder that our lender would be buying the house and kindly allowing us to pay them for it over the next 30 years - provided all of our inspections and such come back good.  Good and bad aspect of our deal was a 3% buyer bonus.  That means the builder credits us 3% of the home cost toward closing and "upgrades".  All this really means to me is we have some money to spend!  The good news is we basically walk into our house without spending a dime up front.  The bad news is we had 12 hours to figure out how we were going to spend a whole bunch of money in "upgrades".  We spent a few hours comparing prices of appliances and blinds and then fired off an email to our realtor.  

By the time we got home Monday night all of our business was done for a few days and we were finally free to head up to Blaine to see my family.  We drove away from all of our responsibility and worries and headed off to the beautiful way-up North Pacific Northwest for a simply wonderful two day escape.  We had a great time hanging out with my cousins, meeting their friends, and taking in the local fair.

As we were leaving today, it hit me....we're home.  This is no longer a vacation, this is it. This is the place where we will play and work, laugh and love.  This is where family is just a drive away. This is where we will find our favorite restaurants, figure out the quick way around a traffic jam, find a church, meet new friends, and lay down some roots.  So exciting!