We won't be homeless!

Well, Ben and I drove all the way to Illinois on Tuesday 11/9 to find a new home. This also happened to be our 14th wedding anniversary. This traveling thing is becoming the norm. Last year, we were flying home from California on our anniversary. Our friend Jesika, that was in Germany with us, works at the base and let us stay with her while we were in town. It wasn't a bad drive, just 13 hours! We had a lot of time to talk about what we wanted in our new home and to listen to comics on the satelite radio.


We met with our realtor on Wednesday morning and looked at 5 houses. The first one was out completely. The second was ok, but would have needed a few minor things done. The third we loved, but it was a short sale. And if you know about them, there is nothing short about them....they take forever to go through and we don't have that kind of time. We then saw two more homes and we really liked both of them. One, was great....but 15 years old. It needed a few things done to it, but overall was fantastic! The other one, was a brand new construction. We did a lot of talking and tried to decide which one would be easier to sell in five or so years. So, we decided to go with...............

Our new home!

.....the new construction. It was a tough decision but we are very happy with our choice. It is all complete and ready to move in, and would cost us less money in the long run. If needed, it should be easier to sell in the future. We will close on it December 20th and can't wait to get settled. It will be so nice to be in the house and not have anything that needs to be done.........except for the yard. The builder is going to lay sod this week and hopefully it does ok with the upcoming winter. Once we move in, the first thing we are going to do is have a fence installed and Ben will hang blinds. I am sure I will paint some, here and there, but nothing will be a rush.


The house is very nice and has a great open floor plan with 2583 sqft. It is on a corner lot and is two houses from the neighborhood pool. The kids are very excited about that! Here are a few pictures from the model home so that you can see it with furniture. I will definitely post pictures once we move in and get settled.

Family Room

Eat in kitchen

Master bedroom

So, we found this on Wednesday, 10/10. We put an offer in on it and had an approval about 15 minutes later. This was after the builder called back from his tree stand to give the ok. Very nice! He is a local builder and doesn't do cookie cutter homes. Our neighborhood has several different builders and as of right now, our home is a one-of-a-kind! We came back on 10/11 and signed all of the paperwork and then drove back home to Virginia on 11/12. It was a very short trip, but our mission was accomplished. We will post more soon!