Holy cow Batman, has it really been 3 months?

Hello. Remember me? I used to do this thing called blogging while building our Strauss and then after closing completely fell off the face of the earth!? Sorry about that, there have been a million things going on and stressing me out for the past month or so, so I have not really been in the mood to blog. But Rachael Romanus has inspired me to get back on the horse, so I thought I would share a few pics of our honeymoon to beautiful Punta Cana, Dominican Republic!

We stayed at the Paradisus Punta Cana Resort, and it was incredible! The food at every restaurant and buffet was amazing, the staff were so accommodating and went out of their way for you all the time, and the drinks were strong! I highly recommend you go, the hubby and I cannot wait to go back with family!

Our view off the balcony of our room 

 Loved these little guys!

 Our view eating breakfast; yes, it is better than our view from our Strauss! ;)

 Don't mind my icky sunburned face, but that drink in that coconut---yes please!

 The hubs and I :)

 Come on, how cool are these light up chairs!?

 Can you tell I really like lizards?

We did an adventure buggy tour to a beach site, cacao, cigar, and coffee plantation, and a cave. We drove our own buggy, got super muddy, and soaking wet. It was awesome!

 Parasailing!

 Just a little terrified :)

 Our own personal tiki hut on the beach. 

 I mean please, look at the color of that water!

 Browsing the shops on our resort.

Ok, I PROMISE I will have house pictures up soon. Have a great night!

And that's all she wrote!

Just doing a quick update from my phone since we will not have internet until Friday...WE ARE CLOSED and settling into our new home! The past two days have been exhausting and thrilling, I think I am running solely off of adrenaline right now :-) It will be all worth it when everything is in its' place and we can enjoy our new home!

To those of you still in the pains of the building process...just keep swimming! It is quite an amazing feeling to be handed those keys! Thank you to everyone for the words of encouragement along the way, I promise to get some progress photos up soon.

Cleared for Takeoff!

Well folks, our LO called my husband late yesterday to say that underwriting came back---we are cleared to close Monday at 10:00!! Now the real fun can begin! I will be sure to update after pre-settlement this afternoon.

How much stress can one person handle???

Well so far we have had a pretty uneventful and drama-free experience building; that it, until now. True to NVR standard, our loan is still going through underwriting. We are supposed to close on Monday! Is there enough time to get it done and ready to go for 10:00 on Monday? 

Our LO sent Colin a form to change our address on the appraisal, which was incorrect. He signed it and faxed it from his hotel in San Diego, so no problem. Ok. Then, she calls him this afternoon saying she sent him the wrong VHDA home owners course to take (which he took in like February, by the way) and he had to take this new one and send the certificate of completion back ASAP for underwriting approval. This happened this afternoon, but he is three hours behind our time and most likely did not get it sent back until she had left the office. So it won't get to the underwriters until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Seriously!?!?!?

Is this going to cause a problem for closing on Monday? Why do they wait until the last possible second for everything! I am a teacher, and taking off of work is not as simple as emailing my boss to tell them I won't be there. I have to write a letter to take personal time off, then it has to go through my principal and payroll before it gets approved. If closing gets pushed back, who knows when it will happen. Then Colin is going away on another business trip next Sunday. 

I AM COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT!!!

9 Days...9 DAYS!!!

I am jumping out of my skin excited!! We close in 9 days! I can't believe it is so soon; we signed our contract on November 26th and almost 5 months later we will officially be homeowners. 

I am finding every itty bitty thing wrong with our tiny apartment; right now it is not having A/C in 90 degree heat! Holy Guacamole it's hot! With the hubby being away on a business trip this week and next, I am under a lot of pressure to get as much packing done as I can so we can organize the big stuff when he gets back next Friday. Add to that stress from work, this HEAT, and I am worn out! Hopefully these next 9 days fly by because I would much rather be stressing inside my new house than in this apartment! Gah! 

Thanks for listening to my rant :) Here's a cute picture of my kitty so you can have a reason to actually read this post ;-)

We finally bought something!

Three weeks and 10+ furniture stores later, we finally decided on our dining room table and chairs! We bought this table and chairs from Ethan Allen. Yes, it was expensive, but everything else we looked at was mediocre. I didn't want to settle. We love it and can't wait to get it delivered in our new home!

Lock it Up and Throw Away the Key!!

That's right folks------->we are officially LOCKED OUT!! A full two weeks before our pre-settlement demonstration. Which means I have to wait pretty much until closing to see my kitchen counter tops. Wahhh!!! :-(

The last time we were able to get inside was last week Tuesday (4/2). Our pre-settlement is the 18th! That seems like a long time to be locked out to me. Anyone else locked out for that long? We went on Friday and asked the new SR (ours moved to another development; although she said she is still "ours" I doubt she will be very accommodating if we need her) for the key and he said our PM had already taken his key away and he couldn't get us in. So of course, me being a smart-ass, asked him why two of our neighbors had their cars parked in front of their units and were clearly inside. His answer---"oh, they must be extra cars from the building in front of yours." Nice try, but we have seen those cars there before going inside their houses. Oh well, didn't feel like fighting.

Anywho, we dropped by last Tuesday (before all this happened) and the cleaners were upstairs getting the whole place spic and span for us. All of our flooring was uncovered, so at least we got to see that, and our landscaping and sod were done. Here are the last pictures I have before pre-settlement!

 Living Room

 Sod in the backyard from morning room

 Kitchen. Yes, we got laminate floors. We got everything pretty much basic. Why put any of that on your mortgage? We plan on changing it out within the next year or so.

 Going upstairs

 Study

 Master shower. We plan on changing out that glass eventually, hubbie likes the seamless.

 Love the tray ceiling. 

 Now it REALLY looks like a house!

 Cute landscaping

Our home :)

Light it Up Blue

April is Autism Awareness month. Walmart is selling blue light bulbs for autism awareness, and Build-a-Bear has a limited edition bear and t-shirt with a portion of the profits going to Autism Speaks. Today, 1 in 91 children are diagnosed with autism---1 in 58 boys. 1 in 58 boys! Let's work together to fund the research and find answers.

For my baby sister Jenna---light it up blue! 

Another month til closing? Really?

So we stopped by the house on Friday (3/22) and were so excited to see the appliances had arrived! Only the microwave and fridge were hooked up, but I still did a little happy dance :) For the appliances, we stuck with the basics RH offered us for now, and plan on upgrading down the road. Electricity and heat were on, it was like a sauna in there, and laminate in kitchen, foyer, and laundry room were installed. Now it really feels like a home. Super anxious to get in there already. 

With all of the progress we've seen this week, it's hard to believe we still have a month to go, but we do. Closing letter came yesterday, stating our pre-settlement walk through to be April 18th with settlement on the 22nd. Soon enough we will be in our HOME. :)

We have Cabinets!!!

We stopped by the house today since we did not take pictures over the weekend, and were thrilled to see our cabinets installed! They are GORGEOUS and we are very happy with our choice of Cherry Bordeaux.

Railings were also installed, and they were putting on a coat of stain while we were there. We chose Cherry stain so it should be a close match to the cabinets.

We did happen to stop by on Friday and saw our tile in the bathrooms was put in. Today it was grouted and ready to go. This is the guest bathroom. We chose the upgraded tile with ivy accent piece in white for the tub. 

And here is our master bath. Upgraded tile with mosaic accent.

Close-up of the mosaic. I plan on painting the bathroom a similar color to the green glass tiles.

Master bath vanity

Master shower

And finally, the front porch is done! No more walking up planks of wood to get inside our house!

More to come this weekend. Stay tuned...