1/6/12

After a busy week, I'm going to attempt to get caught up on blogging an update of what has happened for us the past few days.
On Friday morning we met with our realtor. Our first offer on the house was counter-offered with at first glance didn't look very good for us. We had asked for a fence and garage door opener to be installed plus a much lower price. They didn't agree to any of that, but offered to pay our closing costs. Friday it was time to decide what to do. This was the second home I purchased and my gut told me to not accept their high price if they wouldn't do the fence. Our realtor was a little nervous about my decision on this, maybe they would take away the offer to pay our closing costs if we counter-offered. While we were meeting with our realtor the other realtor called our realtor and asked how it was going. (Clue they wanted to sell this house!) Our realtor asked if we could have a deadline on an answer yet that afternoon or if we needed to wait until after the weekend. Their realtor said they would have an answer by 5pm. Imagine my surprise when about an hour later our realtor called and said our offer was accepted! We didn't get the fence, but they are paying our closing costs plus the lower price.
Next I sent Ram with one car at a time to get license plates for our cars. One reason why it took us so long was I was dreading paying all that money. Ram's plates on his car expired at the end of the month so we couldn't put it off any more. I was pleasantly surprised that ID license plates were about half the price of MN plates.
Next we all loaded up and drove to the big city to get driver's licenses. On the way there we drove by our new house and were surprised to see a SOLD sign up already! It was just a few hours after we had signed the papers. They have now made just one place for the whole county to go to get driver's licenses. It was a little overwhelming for me to walk in there with a hundred other people waiting/doing business after being in a small town for 8 years where we were the only people in the office when we got licenses. Friday afternoon is not the time to get a license. The Lambs did a great job waiting. Lamb 3 fell asleep. I took my written test on the computer first. I had not studied as I didn't know I would have to take a test. There were 40 questions and if you miss 7 you fail. I was nervous about the question about animals on the open range (we didn't have that in IN when I took driver's ed.!) but I passed that question. I missed 4. The ones I missed I was actually more cautious-for example I thought the speed limit was 30mph in one question but it was 35mph. I also had no idea what happened if you were stopped by the police and were intoxicated, my answer would have punished more than the law. Ram missed 6 on his test, but we both passed. Driver's licenses cost a little more in ID than they did in MN. When we get our new house we will need to pay $15 to get the new address on our license.
We rewarded the Lambs after that long wait with a snack at Target. Then after much waiting (since Christmas Day!) they were allowed to shop with their Christmas money. We offered to start at Target and if they didn't want anything there we could go to another store. They all chose something at Target so we were done with that shopping. Lamb 3 chose a Duplo set right away. Lamb 1 debated for a long time but finally chose Legos. Lamb 2 chose Legos too.
Then we had a fast couple of stops at Costco and some other shopping. It's so unbelievable to me that we can stop in at Costco for gas or just a few items after we used to live 4 hours from Costco.
Then we went out to eat for pizza. The kids meals had pizza delivered on Frisbees and choice of Roy Rogers or Shirley Temple drinks. It was crowded and loud on a Friday night, but the Lambs loved this pizza place. Ram and I had an "adult" pizza with spinach and fancy cheese since we didn't have to share with the Lambs. I attempted to talk to my mom on the phone to tell her about the house while we waited for our food, but it was pretty loud in the restaurant.
Finally we did some more shopping. I have needed a small calendar for my purse since CPH no longer sends the small ones to pastors. This was more difficult to find than I thought it would be-guess everyone is electronic now. What I use my calendar for is to record small journal entries when something big happens-example when the Lambs say something funny that I want to remember, the date our house offer was accepted, etc. I keep these calendars and they make scrapbooking a lot easier when I finally get to the photos. I keep it in my purse as often we are not at home when these things happen. An electronic version wouldn't work for me. When I finally found the calendar it was 50% off. I talked to my sister on the phone while I was shopping for calendars.
It was a productive day (expensive too!) to buy a house, get license plates for two cars, and driver's licenses for both of us.