New House??

House hunting…what can I say. It was not the most enjoyable experience. Short sale to short sale, foreclosure to foreclosure…it was a mess! It took days, weeks, even months to hear back from banks. And to hear ‘NO’ was even worse. Mike and I started looking for a house in February. We were certain we would get the first time home buyer tax rebate. Unfortunately too much time has passed and (both federal and state rebates) are no longer available so we are pretty bummed about that! But after many let downs we kept coming back this brand new housing development in Lincoln, CA.

Of course the cost of a brand new home is higher than a 5-10 year home, but there was something about walking into a house and knowing no one has lived in it before. The 5-10 year old homes were bigger (both inside and out) however with a brand new home we wouldn't have to paint the walls, replace carpet, landscape a backyard…etc. Also, we wouldn’t have to wait around to hear back or worry about other bidders.

With all that being said, we decided to put an offer on the house and we heard back within 2 day! We went through a round of negotiation and ended up extremely happy with our results! Like many new housing developments, we were given a chunk of money to put towards upgrading the house. With the upgrade money we were able to enhance few rooms in the house. The upgrades are currently a work in process but it is all slowly coming together. Move in date Sept 4^th! Go house!

Below are a few shots of the front of the house.

Below are a few pictures of the backyard.





































Below are a few picture of the kitchen under construction.




































Below is a picture of the bathroom under construction.


















Everything is right on schedule! Can wait to see the finished product!

Keep you all posted-

Morgie ♥

New Car??

So, I’ve taken a serious break from blogging. Life has been crazy busy but good busy! To add to the craziness of buying a house and planning a wedding, my Saturn decided to break down. I was at a stop light and the light turned green and I couldn’t ‘GO’. I thought maybe my car was in neutral? Nope, not in neutral. Maybe the parking brake is on? Nope, parking brake is not on. By this time the car was honking behind me like a jack ass so I decided to put my flashers on. I realized pressing on the gas would make the car roll. Probably not the best thing to do but I wanted to get the heck out of the way! So I rolled through the intersection and parked on the side of the road and Mike came to my rescue! Long story short, my transmission was dunzo!! Great! Just what need right now!

Thankfully, Mike’s dad works for Folsom Chevy and did a bunch of research. He found that Saturn had a lawsuit filed against them in regards to their crappy transmissions. Apparently Saturn went out of business before they issue a recall and the poor people like me could not get our transmissions replaced. Mind you I only had $70,000 miles on my 2004 vehicle. Not grounds for the transmission going out! GMC took over Saturn and decided to offer those who had a crappy transmission $5,000 towards the purchase of a brand new GMC vehicle. At the time, Chevy was offering at $3,000 rebate on their Malibu’s, Cobalt’s and HHR’s. (All of this working in my favor, but buying a new car right NOW was not in my plan.) Mike and I already have an HHR so that's out of the question. Malibu’s were too expensive and I had to keep in mind our debit to income ratio could not be affected since we were buying a house. So the options were either a Cobalt or HHR.

Maybe I’m ungrateful or snobby but I really did not like the Cobalts. And if I’m going to spend a lot of money on a car that I’ll have for 5 years, it better be something I like. (Plus I will need 4 doors for an addition to our family ;-) Not now, but definitely in a couple years). So I decided to go with the HHR instead of the Cobalt. And now Mike and I have 2 HHR’s!! LOL! Oh yeah, and Mike’s brother has an HHR too! We’re starting an HHR club if anyone is interested in joining! We plan on taking a picture of our new HHR family soon! JK!

Below is a picture of my new car! Nothing like that new car smell!

Morgie ♥