Hi All,

First Thanks for all the wonderful well wishes and prayers. 

WE GOT OUR FIRST HOUSE!!!! FINALLY!.  Made it official Wednesday 9/24/08.  After two very long years of looking and being savvy to make sure we don't go house poor, we finally did it.  We ended up buying a foreclosure.  This is a house that we had put a contract in on back in October of last year and by waiting we got it $30,000.00 cheaper and an unbelievable interest rate.  Yeah!!!

We are so happy and relieved.  We have a lot of cleaning and painting and flooring to do before we officially move in, but hey it's for "our place", so it's worth it.

A warning to people who burn candles A LOT..... the soot from the candles is just as bad as smoking does damage to the inside of your home.  It is everywhere in our new house and it is terrible to clean and it's all over everything!  The inside of the windows were so gross.  Then when I cleaned the outside of the windows it wasn't even close to being near what was on the inside.  Hate to know what their lungs look like from breathing all that in.  We are painting with Kils paint cause the white walls are "BLACK" up near the tops.  It took me two hours of serious scrubbing just to do the outside of the refrigerator.  Running your finger down the window it comes off "black".  Yup...Yuck.

All the carpets are torn up already and we are down to the bare plywood.  Looking GREAT.  We are going to put in manufactured hardwood flooring throughout the house (doing it ourselves).

It is so exciting to finally have our own home.  We told our neighbors here and they are so happy for us and offering to help in anyway.  We are going to miss them SO much.  They are the best.

Our daughters preschool teacher is our neighbor!  She's so sweet.  Lots of kids around for DD to play with too.

DD absolutely LOVES her room!  She loves the house too.

Well, off to finish packing cause we are leaving for Baltimore for my best friends Wedding this weekend.  I'm a bridesmaid.  I can't fit anymore into my schedule this week.  My birthday is Sunday and we are going to take DD to her first major league baseball game at Camden Yards.  She is excited and has a little Baltimore cheerleader outfit.  Fab.

Best wishes to you all too.