House Hunting and Other New Adventures

DH and I have begun "browsing" for houses. So exciting!!! It seems to be the trend that I am ready for the next stage in life before my life is ready for it. Let me explain...

I got married at 19. The typical plan is to wait until finishing college. I was a sophomore.

I had a baby at 23. The plan was to wait until I was done with dental school.

Now I am antsy to get into a house of our own. The problem is, our finances aren't exactly ready for us to purchase a house. :( Sad face.

I hate having to wait for something, but in this case, it is probably a good idea. First of all, we don't even know which area we want to live in! We have been browsing from St. Michael to Waconia and everywhere in between. That is a huge difference! On one hand, we would like to live close to family and friends from our younger days. That would lead us to looking around the Elk River area. On the other hand, DH works in Chanhassen, our church is in Eden Prairie and our newer friends reside in the area more south and west of the Cities. So where does that leave us? Considering I don't know where I will be working, it will probably be helpful to wait. One thing that (helped?) narrow down the search is the "down-payment assistance" program done by the USDA's Rural Development. There are certain "rural" areas of the state that qualify for 0% down payment with very little impact on overall monthly mortgage payment. So that leaves us west of a vertical line drawn from Albertville to Waconia. At first I thought this would be totally fine and help narrow down our options to a reasonable number of great houses we could consider. As I continue to browse, I am starting to get a little disappointed. I found a lot of places/areas that I like that aren't eligible for the down-payment assistance program. It excludes St. Michael, Elk River, Hanover and more importantly, Chaska, which I fell in love with already. Boooo!

So I don't really know where that leaves us. I went to talk to a lender just so a professional could hash out our finances and give me an idea where we are at and where we need to be. That helped a lot, but made me want to speed up the process and get a house now! I'm not very patient ;)

In other news, Bean is so wonderful and I miss being home with her soooooo much! She is such a happy baby now! She is at such a fun age and doing new things daily. And one of the most amazing things she is doing is sleeping like 12 hours straight! Whoa! She wakes up and fusses a little bit in her crib usually 1-2x/night but goes right back to sleep as soon as we put the pacifier back in her mouth!

And she loves swimming! She splashes and kicks and smiles and splashes some more! I love it! PLUS I got her the cutest Baby Gap swimsuit from Once Upon a Child, brand new, with tags, for $5! Awesome, right???

My 3 week break is coming up - 2 days of clinic left! I can't wait to spend every day with Lydia again! It is going to be different, but in a good way (I think)!

Alright, back to studying... Everyone else is sleeping (including the dogs), but I have a final tomorrow. Ick.