As You Wish...

Sorry I haven't been updating much. It was easier during the school year when I got online everyday. 

My last update tells you that we were thinking of building a home. Well, after looking at what houses were on the market and finding nothing at all close to what we want, we went for it. We signed a contract to build a home. We are building a three bedroom, two bath, two care garage,  1700 square feet home. With a nice sized yard, jacuzzi bath tub and private toilet in the master bathroom.  I am a little nervous, a house is a lot of money and a big commitment. But very excited! The nice thing is, that if something were to happen and we needed out of the contract, they would let us get out. That is only because we are building in a housing addition and they will always be able to sell it to someone else. The builder has been super helpful, given us great deals and kept us up to date on everything.

Here is a picture of us in front of our sold sign. (Even though we actually haven't paid anything yet)

Here is what our lot looks like. Without the house of course :)

I am spending my days working at the Daycamp at FBC Tulsa. I work with the kindergarten class. They keep me busy. It is a lot less structured than school, so that was hard to get used to. We go to the pool and the park twice a week and a special trip once a week. So, we are out of the building everyday. 

I have been busy making things for my classroom. I know it will be a crazy year, so the more I get done now, the better I think it will be. I am very excited and nervous. (There seem to be a lot of things in my life to be nervous about these days, lol.) 

I have also been reading a lot. Lately, it's been the Harry Potter Series. I am on book 6 out of 7 these days. I have been reading a book and then watching the movie. I wanted to get ready for the new movie. Next, it will be The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Wicked. That is to get ready to musical Wicked (super excited about this). 

Jake and I celebrated our one year anniversary and we are still making it! 

Big Kid Decisions

So, I am going to dump a lot of stuff in here. I need to process this and writing helps me do it!

A few weeks ago Jake and I started looking at houses for sale. We don't plan to actually move until Novemeber/December but is way fun to look. (We are looking for a forever home. A house we can raise our kids in.) In the process Jerad and Sierra told us of this housing addition in Sand Springs. You pick a plot, a floor plan and build! We began to check out floor plans and toy with the idea. Then we went last Saturday just to talk to see a model home and get some questions answered.

Man did that get our minds working! This is a virtual tour of close to what we like.

There are great advantages to building:

• Everything is new.
• Everything is how you want it. There is little changing stuff to what you like (Which costs more money.)
• No dealing with inspections.
• You can design the home and then pay for it when it is finished. Nice! That would be perfect timing for us. (It takes 4-5 months to build). You close on the house when it is completely built.

Then there are advantages to buying a home:

• It is cheaper.
• You can slowly change things as you can afford them.

We see that both options can be good. But here's the issue. The government is doing this great thing and is giving first-time home buyers $8,000 when they buy a home. We don't want to pass that up. The deadline for this is December 1, 2008. You have to have closed on the house on December 1st! If we want to build, we need to start soon in order to close on the house by that day. BUT there is always the chance that our perfect home is waiting for us to buy it for cheaper than it would cost us to build.

Scenario: We go look at the houses on the market to decide now whether to build or buy. Ok, we find our perfect home for cheaper. So, we decide not to build and wait to get this house. We wait until we are ready to purchase the house (4-5 months from now). But we find out the house is no longer on the market. So, we look for another house. No perfect houses and we have missed the chance to build in time to get the $8,000.

Boo!

Being a big kid is way harder than I thought it would be!