Happy New Year 2010!

Wow. Tyson and I can't believe it is 2010 already! This decade has flown by quickly. In August, Tyson and I will have officially been together for 10 YEARS!!!! Boy that flew! The beginning of 2009 was an awesome year for the both of us............our wedding, me landing my teaching job before I graduated, and my graduation. The end of 2009 wasn't so nice to us.............I was diagnosed with IC and it put our lives on temporary hold. HOWEVER! I'm VERY optimistic about 2010 and the years to come. My gut feeling tells me that we've got many wonderful, happy things and events heading our way! I've got great intuition *wink*.

For the past week, Tyson and I have been patting ourselves on the back and are especially proud of all of our accomplishments in these past couple of years. We've managed to put a ton of money in savings which leads me to some awesome piece of news.....TYSON AND I ARE FINALLY LOOKING AT HOMES! We're both VERY excited, and Tyson is growing very impatient (typical). He wants to get us into a home very soon. We want to be under contract by April and be able to close in June so that we qualify for the $8,000 first time home buyer tax credit that we will get next year. But, we won't get it if we don't get under contract at lest by April and close at least by June. That is why Tyson is stressing to get into a house by then because we've got a plan for what we want to do with that money like furnishing the home and putting more in savings.

We've worked it out to where we'll be able to put money down on the home and still have plenty in savings. Then after house payments, fees, other bills, fun money, etc. we'll still have money to continue to add into savings, and THEN we'll get the tax credit and put THAT into savings! Overall, I'm pretty pumped! I like to see money go into savings! I'm pretty impressed with how financially smart and organized my husband is (thanks Hugh and Nancy!), and he knows he doesn't have to worry about me blowing our money on things unless we HAVE it. Being a broke college student in the past taught me a lot of financial lessons like learning how to save every penny just to pay for a semester's worth of classes. It wasn't fun, but it sure taught me a lot. In the end, I think the past has prepared us, and now we're ready to get into a nice, new, and cute little home. EEEEEEEEEEEK!!! I'M EXCITED!

For the past couple of days, we've taken advantage of both Tyson and my days off together, and we've gone house hunting. We originally were looking at both Plantation and Perry homes. Tyson was really going for Plantation because he got a bad first impression with Perry when he met with one of the sales people in the Imperial Oaks neighborhood. Well, we went into the Spring Trails neighborhood and looked at Plantation first. Tyson was dead set on Plantation until I told him that we need to keep an open mind and at least meet with the Perry sales people in the Spring Trails neighborhood. Well, as it turns out, Tyson kept telling me yesterday that he was thankful that we took a peek at Perry because he is now dead set on Perry. So am I.

As we've discovered, Perry will give us more for our money. The home we're looking at with Perry looks EXACTLY the same as the home we liked with Plantation. The difference with Perry, though, is that they have more standard options. The home automatically comes with tiled kitchen (60 different choices in tile!), tiled backsplash, separate bath and shower in the master, tiled showers/bathrooms, etc. It basically has a lot of the things we want, PLUS they pair us with an interior design person to put together the look of our house. With Plantation, none of those things I mentioned come standard. Those are only upgrades which is yuck. By the time you add in all of the options, the price of the home would be more than we wanted to pay. I decided to convince Tyson to at least allow me to see the Plantation homes in the Imperial Oaks neighborhood so I could see how he got a bad first impression. As I've said before, I wanted to keep an open mind. Well, the sales person showed us a home with the same layout we're looking at with Perry, and when I asked him if the tile came standard, he said, "No. Linoleum is standard." I then proceeded to look at the guy, and said, "EW!" He lost me at linoleum. Then Tyson and I both looked at each other, and we didn't even have to say anything. We knew right away that the Perry home in Spring Trails was the way to go!

Below is a virtual tour of the house we like. It's the model of the Plantation home because I couldn't find the virtual tour of the house with Perry. It's the EXACT same look and layout we like with Perry. What you'll see in this tour is an added media/game room. This will not be in the home we're looking at. Also, the Perry home we're looking at has a square footage of 1,909 and it has 4 bedrooms, not 3. The home you're about to see on the virtual tour is smaller and has one less bedroom. I thought this would at least give you an idea of what we're looking at. Click on:

http://www.plantationhomes.com/community_details.aspx/Houston/SpringTrails-45ft-Homesites

On the left side of the page is a box named COMMUNITY LINKS. Click on 4817D/Kendleton under model home tours. The page will load. It might be quick, or it might take a while depending on your PC. If it doesn't load, just keep X-ing the page, and re-click 4817D/Kendleton. Sometimes it's stubborn. Once it loads, a picture of the home will pop up. You can eith click on SLIDESHOW or VIRTUAL IMAGES to see the home. I'd suggest VIRTUAL IMAGES.

Let us know what you think! We love it and we think (or I think) it's super cute! We want to move right away. We're tired of the screaming, angry guy that lives above us who's always screaming at someone on the phone. We're also tired of the people who live on the other side of the wall from us because they blare loud, techno music all night. Also, some people just moved in the apt. right across from us, and they have late night arguments which leads to screaming and slamming front doors. Plus, they have this little annoying moped, and every time they drive in, Rosco goes NUTTY! Needless to say....WE'RE READY TO GET OUT OF HERE! But, we will continue to pace ourselves, but I think we've already nailed down the house we want.

We wish everyone a Happy New Year and may 2010 bring you wealth, health, and happiness!