I am proud to say...

That I am (and have been for a little bit now) a homeowner!! This journey has been the longest, most stressful time of my life but it is sweet, sweet music now. I am absolutely in love with my new home and can't wait to share it with you!

I am going to blog this in segments so it's not so overwhelming for you or me. Gil and I started looking for a place about Jan. of '09. We really weren't sure about the market and who to trust to help us buy our first place. I knew of some Realtors in our ward but things were iffy and I still just wasn't sure. Well things fell right into place once I seriously started praying and listened for those quiet whispers and snugly feelings. I love those feelings. It just confirms everything that I know to be true. Anyway...

Due to unforeseen secrets and and other things that happened I started to really pray hard and earnestly if moving was the right decision for Gil and I and to help us find someone trustworthy to help us through this daunting task. The answer came quick and so did everything else. My brother-in-law had got his license a long time ago but never used it. So one day as Gil and I were talking about finding a place my brother-in-law suggested that he help us. I knew I could trust him but wasn't sure still cause he just has so much on his plate, a family of 5 young girls, his calling in the church, his normal job in the military (which was sending him away soon), and an appraisal job on the side. Even though all these doubts entered my mind at first, I went ahead and said "Sure.....are you sure?" Well let me tell you he was great!! More than I could have asked for.

We went ahead and started looking seriously in Aug. '09. We saw homes in Ewa (4-5 bedrooms, yard, etc..) that we could afford at the top of our budget but needed work. We soon realized that we needed to find something that wouldn't take a lot of work to make it nice living. We started looking at homes and found a few that we bid on but obviously the bank lowered the asking price to start a bidding war which we lost 3 times. Feeling very frustrated we put an offer on a town home (with a vengeance) that looks exactly like the one we have now, but it had nice hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances, nice paint, wouldn't really have to do much to the place. I fell in love with the inside (who wouldn't with all that stainless steel and granite counter tops?) but still wasn't sure. I was confused (it was super nice and I wanted it but something just wasn't right) and didn't really want to make a move even though we bid and won and the process was starting to go through. I prayed really hard again if this was the house we should raise our family in. Well, a week later our brilliant realtor was looking on line and found a diamond in the rough.

We looked at it the day after it went on the market, placed a bid, told the other house "Sorry but we found something better," then got accepted (people told us we were crazy for doing that). This place had ugly brown carpet complete with dog hair balls (I don't think they ever cleaned) and vinyl all over, a broken fan, hard liquor everywhere and missed matched everything but somehow it just felt right.

After waiting 5 months for this short sale to go through (another blessing) we finally had a place to call our own. I am sooooo happy to be here in this house. It was such a stressful adventure but one I would do all over again.

**if you want to read all about it I'm going to blog the whole process in detail pretty soon just so I can go back and relive the horror!! chuckle, chuckle!**

top....our kitchen before (standing in front of the front door I think.) The open door leads to the 2 car garage.

Our living room with broken fan.

a before picture......before it turned into Dezi's room.

stats: 3 bedrooms

2 1/2 baths

a little office area

2 car garage

a perfect little enclosed front yard.

P.S. stay tuned for the "after" blog.