I mean it, Punk!

Last night Tera called David and I and invited us to come spend some time with her and the kiddos.
We met up with her at the Old Navy in clackamas so she could finish up some shopping. We then decided it would be fun to take the kids to the Starlight parade! I have never been so I thought it would be fun, and David went along with it because he is a good uncle :)

We got the kids some dinner thanks to uncle David...mmmm $1 lunchables from Fred Meyer! Then we were off to Portland. We decided to park a couple blocks away from the Burnside bridge and walk over to try and beat some traffic and parking. The walk there was good!! Both kids were excited to see the parade and were walking on there own. We found a good spot to watch around 8-8:30. Taylor was loving it but she thought it was a little loud. She kepttelling us "they keep going boom boom, and its too loud for people" She got to sit on uncle Davids shoulders and see the whole parade. There were some teenage cheerleaders that came through and she looks and me and says "Those girls are teenagers just like me!" haha soo cute! Colbs was getting tired so Tera was holding him for the whole parade. He was getting sleepy and wanting to go home so we started walking back. Poor Tera, who had been holding Colbs for the whole time we were there had to carry him the whole way back because he didn't want anyone else to. we walked over a mile with him on her hip. He let me carry him over half the bridge which gave Tera a little break. We finally got back to the car and Tera got to rest. Colbs went right to sleep. Tay started to get a little grumpy and started saying "I mean it Punk!" everytime she wasn't happy. Tera was getting upset because I guess she says it all the time, but David and I could not keep ourselves from laughing, which only made it worse. Sorry Tera:) I bet the the rest of the car ride home for Tera was a joy!!

House Hunting

So David and I have been house hunting for the last little while. We decided that with David having a very stable job, the housing market being a buyers market, and the $8,000 tax credit that it is as good of time as ever.
We having been working with an awesome real estate agent who has been so great about letting us know as soon as houses we would be interested in come on the market. Our ideal place to live is West Linn. It is a nice community and is in a school district that we would love our future children to go to. We found a house that David realllly liked and me not so much. It is in West Linn but on a short sale. using the term short sale is deceiving because the process is anything but short. Because short sales involve the bank as the third party it can take up to 4 months to hear a response after putting in an offer.

We decided to put an offer in on the house with low expectations of getting it. There were 3 other bids on the house so we contined our search.
We started looking in other locations like Oregon city and Gladstone but weren't as excited about the location as West Linn. It seems like Every house we have looked at is either on a short sale or was built in 1862 and ready to fall to the ground. We had been getting very discouraged.

Last night our real estate agent Rosemary calls at 9:00 at night and tells us there was Just a house posted in West Linn in our price range and that we should probably take a look at it soon because West Lin is so competetive even in this housing market. At 9:30 PM David and I meet Rosemary at this huge split Level house in West Linn, right by the high school. This house had just had a $30,000 price reduction and had previously had another $30,000 reduced... $60,000 in total! and was NOT a short sale!! This house is 1900 sq ft with 2 fire places and a 2 care garage and a good sized back yard for our pup. We fell in love right away. Rosemary pulled out the paper work so we could write an offer and that's what we did. At 10:10 PM our offer was made. We were the first and only offer. We had to wait all day for the owner to get back to us on if he accepted . He is a very motivated seller due to the fact that he has already moved to Southern Oregon and purchased another home! The offer was ACCEPTED!!Now it is just a matter of inspections and appraisals before we can hopefully be first time home owners!