Valentines Weekend

Last weekend was Valentine's day, it was also a 3-day weekend, Scott and I had no plans. We have never really celebrated much for valentines day. Our first year I planed a nice date but since then, it has gone down-hill. This year, Scott didn't even get me a card, I bought him a card, but left it in my car, still haven't given it to him. Valentine's day is just not that big of a deal for us. Being that it was a long weekend, we tried to make plans.

• We thought about going camping with friends - but it was raining.
• We planned to go to a cabin at Big Bear instead - it was snowing.
• We were going to go visit Scott's grandparents - they already had plans.
• We tried to make little plans with friends to go bowling - the timing wasn't right.

Somehow, all our plans kept getting cancelled. So instead we stayed home on Friday night just the two of us, and on Saturday, decided to go looking for a new house to rent.

On Saturday morning, we were going to go drive by a house to rent, but instead decided to go get pre-approved to see if we could get approved to buy a house instead. We went to Bank of America while Brendan was sleeping hoping to meet with someone before he woke up. Unfortunately, we waited over half-an-hour and Brendan woke up. We finally got to see a representative, sat down at the desk and she basically told us that she couldn't help us. If we wanted a FHA loan (which we did) we would have to speak with another loan rep over the phone, but she didn't work on Saturday.

We left, frustrated that we had to actually wait that long to hear that we couldn't be helped. While we were loading up in the car, I remembered that my Boss (rather my boss's Boss) had just bought a home and had given me the business card of her realtor. I gave him a call just to get the ball rolling, we gave me the number for the guys he works with to get us pre-approved, said he would be in touch.

Not 20 minutes later, he called us and said "I have a house I want you to see" and that was it, all of the sudden we were house hunting! On our 5th Valentine's day together, Scott and I started planning our next big step for our family, purchasing our first home. We looked at about 6 or 7 houses together, There was a nice two story house that I loved, needed some new paint and a lot of cleaning, but I loved the potential, Scott did not love the train that went through the backyard. Scott loved the one story home in the corner lot with a nice back-yard. I didn't love the large "great-room" that would count as my living, family & dining room. We went home that night excited, nervous, and indecisive.

On Sunday we had dinner with friends Jenni & Dave (picture of Dave, Jenni & Brendan above, Brendan & Dave below) and discussed our options, what to expect, and what quetsions to ask about the money portion.

Monday afternoon, we had an appointment with our realtor again. I took a long lunch and we look at another few houses. This time, we found one that we both loved. No offers had yet been made, we went right to work and made an offer on a house!

Happy Valentine's day to us!