We bought a new SUV!

Collin and I tend to both research things to death, especially when a lot of money is involved.  We have worked very hard to be basically debt free except for our houses and we love to eat out and take vacations.  However, when we moved back to the States we needed another vehicle.  Collin's parents have graciously let us borrow one of their cars until we bought a house and bought a car.  Thank you Jim and Reba!  But the time has come to make a decision and return theirs.

We considered a larger SUV or minivan or getting a super gas efficient car mainly for Collin.  However, after having my third miscarriage, I don't have as much hope for having the large family I always thought I would.  So given that, I didn't want to drive a huge gas guzzler around with only having one child.  Although having a third row would be nice it was not necessary.  A must was rear air conditioning and we decided that with hot Texas summers, getting the vehicle with rear a/c was a good move.  We looked at the Acura MDX's.  We loved them!  Sadly, new they cost 50K.  Yeah, that was way out of our budget!  We looked at about 6 used ones, all ran good but had a lot of miles on them.  We drive about 10K miles per year per vehicle.  So buying a six year old car with over 100K miles wasn't appealing.  We wanted to pay cash for something but around the 8K mark our choices were limited.  As we moved up in price the vehicle choices increased.  However, we just couldn't justify paying 16K for a vehicle with 120K miles on it (a fully loaded 2006 MDX).  So we decided to buy new since we haven't had a car payment in two years (when we bought our new Subaru we paid it off in 2 years) and we paid cash for Collin's car in Germany and sold it for $300 less than we paid for it 3 years before. 

I contacted probably 20 car dealers comparing deals.  Finally, Sunday night, I saw an internet special ad for a new 2012 Ford Edge and 2013 Explorer.  I emailed Sunday night and followed up Monday morning.  The Explorer had been sold but the Edge was still there.  He said but they only had one at that price.  I played tough girl and told them I was driving across town and if it sold to call me asap because I didn't want to waste my time driving there if that vehicle for that price was not available.  Dealers have played that game with me too many times and I've walked away angry.  Needless to say, he put the keys on his desk and when I got there only one other family had driven it that morning.  I drove it and then bought it.  The dealer said we got such a good deal on it and our credit is so good they could have written us a check.  We got over $5500 off MSRP and below the Consumer Reports rate.  It would have been $750 more off but I didn't have a trade-in.  The internet sales guy said they have specials about once a month where they lose money to draw people in.  However, only people with really good credit get the truly good deal.  We loath car payments but decided at this time it's worth doing considering the poor used car market.  It was strange buying a car alone but I like playing hard ball.  Collin would have been there with me if he could, he's just been extremely busy at work since we moved here.  Thankfully he loves his job.  The dealers even let me drive it off the lot before Collin could get off work to sign off on his part of the deal.

Here's our new beauty!  It's dark blue with tan interior.  I love the peppiness of the Edge over larger SUVs such as the Explorer.  Although the Explorers are very nice too!

Updates

It's been a while since I've written.  We have been extremely busy since moving back to the States.  I'm still unpacking boxes.  Which by the way, I LOVE our house!  It was not one of the original choices.  It's a new construction that is closer to my Collin's job.  Being close to his job is very important to us.  It's twice as far as his commute in Germany but close enough we can still meet for lunch several times a week.  If we both drive 10 minutes, we meet in the middle and there are lots of great restaurants to choose from. 

For Easter, we had my side of the family over for Easter and that was a lot of fun.  I signed Caden up for gymnastics this week, have joined a MOMS Group, hung out with friends from church, and met up with new friends.  We also go to the zoo about once a week and try and meet up with friends 2-3 times a week and family on other days.  Needless to say, we're rarely home.  I have a goal of unpacking at least one box per day.  We're down to those boxes of things that fall into the catergory of, do we really need this?  Or why do we own this?  But every once in a while we find something that is of value that got thrown into a box of junk.  We're trying to get rid of things we don't use and not become pack rats.

Last week I found out I was pregnant.  I found out on April 10th, the due date of the baby from my second prengnacy.  That was a hard day until I found out I was pregnant.  Then I was hopeful.  We were super excited and I immediately called a doctor to get an appointment because my German doctor told me once I got pregnant that I needed to come into her office and get a progesterone injection.  I could not get an appointment until two days later.  When I went in my hGC levels were very low, 19, and my progesterone levels were extremely low as well, 1.2.  This was not a good sign.  Sadly, we ended up losing this baby too but I was a little more prepared, since I knew what my levels were.  My German doctors never told me the numbers so I had nothing to compare too.  Even though I was more prepared mentally, it has still been extremely hard.  I have so many mixed emotions and feelings. I went back and actually met the doctor on Wednesday and I really like her (I met with a nurse practitioner last week).  The doctor is going to run 18 tests on me.  I go in and have 17 tests done next week.  She has a lot of high risk pregnant patients and works closely with specialists.  Since this was my third miscarriage, I told her I just want to know if I can have anymore children.  If I cannot have anymore children, then I don't want to continue trying because emotionally I am not able to continue this.  She is pretty positive that I will be able to have more.  Since we know I have a thyroid disorder and a blood clotting disorder, we're going to try and balance all of that out.  Also, I have very low progesterone levels, so there's a good chance I'm going to have to have injections in a future pregnancy.  Once I have the blood tests done, she wants me to take one baby Aspirin a day with food and later start progesterone supplements.  A lot was said and I'll know more once I have the blood tests and we get the results back.

 

 

I will update more as I know more.  Eventually I will post some fun and interesting posts of things we're doing.  Because overall, we really are enjoying being back home.  It's nice having some grandparents around and seeing old friends.  Caden loves his extended family and we are enjoying all of the American amenities.  We feel so spoiled after living in Germany to be back in Texas and Germany is a very nice country to live in.

Concert, Playdates, Birthdays, and More!

Ever since we moved into our house, things have been even busier for us.  On top of having to unpack, this is our first move with a child, we are continuing to get involved in fun activities.  I'm a stay-at-home mom who loves to get out of the house!  We've had great weather lately and we're trying to enjoy it before it gets too hot.

This past Wednesday, I took Caden to his first concert.  It was at Will Rogers Memorial Concert Hall and we saw Stephen Fike, a children's artist.  Caden and his friends had a good time.  However, I think he'll enjoy it more in a few years.  I was surprised how well he paid attention and was engaged.  It was an hour and I think that was the perfect length of time.  There was a total of 6 moms and 9 little kids who came from Legacy.  The place was packed, there were bus loads of school kids there.

After the concert we went to eat lunch with our friends at Central Market.  The kids got to play on the playground after they ate.  Then Caden and I went to see my maternal grandmother, Grandmother Dot.  It was her birthday.  Caden picked out a flower at Central Market to give her, we made her brownies and bought her a piece of chocolate cake and a card.  She was delighted to see us.  She loves Caden and he loves her too.  Of course I love her as well!  She is very dear to me and we are and were very close.  Happy 88th Birthday Grandmother Dot!!

Another exciting thing we've done is I've joined a MOMS Group.  The first week we were in town, Caden and I went to a MOPS meeting at a church close to my parents.  It was fun and I enjoyed the ladies, but our schedule has not worked out where we could attend again.  Last week Caden and I went to a MOMS Group meet-up at someone's house.  It was kind of strange walking up to someone's house you don't know but we both had a great time.  We went to another meet-up yesterday and joined the group.  I also got two referrals for babysitters, hooray!

We also try and meet-up with friends from church at least once a week.  Besides going to the concert, we've enjoyed trips to the zoo and museum. 

Also, we finally bought Caden a big trampoline.  He LOVES it!!  Collin and I do too!  Pictures to come.

Monday night we had our first cook-out.  My parents and both brothers and their girls came over and we cooked hot dogs and hamburgers.  Sunday we're having extended family over for Easter and I'm making brisket among other things.  We love our house!  We'll get internet next week so I'll be able to start posting pictures.  I'm doing a photo shoot for my friend on Saturday.  She's engaged to a great guy!  I look forward to meeting him.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter weekend.  We are so blessed because of Jesus.

We love our house!!

Last Thursday we closed on our house!  Friday, the movers came with our household goods from Germany and we got to spend our first night here.  Caden woke up happy for about the first time since arriving in Texas.  He woke up in his new room with some of his toys and did not want to leave!!  We will not have a refrigerator until Monday, so we have been going out for breakfast.  We had a difficult time getting him out the door to eat breakfast, which is one of his favorite meals of the day!  Needless to say, we all love our new house!  Our furniture and everything fits beautifully.  Once we get internet set up and finish organizing and unpacking, I'll post pictures.

My parents are so wonderful, they watched Caden for us on Thursday when we did our final walk-through and closing.  Our closing should have only taken an hour, however, the mortgage broker tried adding an extra $1279 fee!  It was for lender's insurance, which is not something you really need, but was something that her company was going to pay as a promotion to use them.  Lets just say we were not going to close until that fee was removed.  Especially since we had to pay almost $9000 in closing fees!  We watch every penny we can.  :)

Friday, my aunt graciously watched Caden ALL day while the movers were here.  She took him to the park and he had a great time.  He loves his Aunt Karen!!  Collin and I helped the 5 movers put the boxes in the right rooms and I lined about half of my kitchen with contact shelf paper and immediately started unpacking boxes.  I pretty much emptied every box labeled kitchen so the movers could take some of the empty boxes away.  By the end of Friday, our house was a huge mess.  Shawn stopped by Friday to see our house and say hello. 

Saturday, my sweet friend, Emily, came over and helped!  She helped me organize my kitchen, clear my counters, played with Caden, and go through random boxes of toys and other goods.  Drew and Kristyl stopped by too.

Tomorrow our refrigerator is supposed to arrive.  Our awesome washer and dryer arrived Friday morning before anything else.  I feel completely spoiled!  I love it!  I've been washing clothes none stop.  It's huge and fits about 3x the amount of clothing as my German washing machine and cleans everything a lot better too.  I was even able to wash my comforter!  Sadly, I don't think I have ever washed that thing.  Now, I'll be able to easily wash it all the time!

We feel truly blessed to live in such a nice house and be back in America.  We enjoyed our time in Germany but it is great to be home.  Last weekend Collin took a few days off work and we went to see his parents.  I love that our families are now all within driving distance.  It was a LONG drive, but at least it's better than flying overseas.  Caden did great on his longest car trip yet.  It took us 8 hours to get there and 7.5 hours to get back.  I caught a terrible stomach bug that lasted 6 days.  Other than that, we had a wonderful time.  A few of Collin's nieces came to visit us and brought their kids.  I love his family.

Bounce House and New House

Yesterday, Caden and I met some friends at a Bounce House. The kids had a lot of fun burning off energy and the moms enjoyed watching them and talking. Caden and I got there right when it opened and had a room of bounce houses to ourselves for about 30 minutes. We did our first walk-through of our new house today. It took a little over 3 hours. My parents graciously watched Caden for us. We close on our house in one week! We are so excited! I bought our new washer and dryer online today and hope to schedule them to be delievered shortly after we move in. Now if only our household goods can be delivered next Friday we will be able to move right in. We've been in the car for over 8 hours now driving to my in-laws. This is Caden's longest car trip and we're still in TX! You could be half-way across Europe in this amount of time. We're looking forward to a long weekend with family. Sent from Yahoo! Mail on Android

Excitement!

We are so excited about finally finding a house!  Thank you for your prayers.  Every few days we go by the house and look at it thinking about what we need to buy to finish it out.  Caden loves seeing where his new room will be.  He's also excited about the new big trampoline we're going to get him for our backyard.  I'm just excited to have a nice size backyard.  Our lot is about 1/4 of an acre.  We were looking at buying an acre in the country and building a house out there.  However, I'm honestly glad we're not doing that.  Lots of yard means lots to water and right now this part of Texas is under a drought.

At the top of our list of things to buy are a washer and dryer.  I posted a question on Facebook about what kind of washer and dryer people recommended.  Thank you for your contribution.  I was really considering getting a front loader but now am back considering a top loader.  One main reason is because you have to leave the door open and knowing my adventurous son, he will eventually climb inside the washing machine if the door is left open.

Last night I paid for consumerreports.org for a year.  It's interesting to read what Consumer Reports recommends and then read the readers' reviews.  It seems like many of the "top" rated items have low consumer ratings.  I have a few requirements with this purchase.  I want a washing machine that really cleans clothes and can sanitizes them.  Hopefully we will have another baby and once we do, I would like to use cloth diapers again.  Caden has very sensitive skin and I think sensitive skin is in our genes.  So most likely we'll have to plan on doing that again with any future babies at least for a little while.  I also want a washing machine and dryer that are very quiet.  The other two requirements, something that won't lay wrinkles in our wrinkle-free clothes and something that is pretty fast.

Other items we need to buy include: bedroom set for Caden, a king size bed for us, a dining room table set, and media room or living room furniture.  We're probably going to purchase things in stages since we don't want to incur debt with our purchases.  First Caden's room, then our room, then the other rooms.  If you know of a good place to buy good quality furniture at a reasonable price, please let us know.

The other large item we are waiting on buying is another vehicle.  We're waiting to close on the house before purchasing this.  We're trying to decide if we want to pay cash for something or buy a new or almost new vehicle.  We hate debt and have learned that there are many advantages to not having a car payment.  So we will see.  I really want something that has rear air conditioning.  I have heard that minivans are great for young kids and I love the ones with automatic doors.  However, I like the looks of SUVs more.  There is just so much to consider. 

We are so grateful to God to be back in Texas.  We really enjoyed our time in Germany and are glad we did it but there really is no place like home.

We found house!!

We found a house!  Last week we made an offer on a foreclosure.  The bank wouldn't budge on the price and said they couldn't close until April 16th!  That would mean we couldn't move in until sometime in May because of the renevations we would need to do.  So we continued our hunt as we did not feel the other house was worth paying more for with all we would have to do to it.  Then we came to house #3.  We made an offer on Friday.  It's a new house and we are not using a realtor so we have more negotation room.  The sales rep took our offer to the builder on Monday.  Yesterday we found out they accepted our offer!  Hurray!! 

The cool thing about this home is it has just about everything we would want.  It's almost 100K less than the one across town.  It's close to Collin's job, the elementary school is rated the same as the "better" school on the other side of town, and we have family nearby.  Also, it's a new house!  They also will be able to close in possibly 2 weeks!  Another thing I really love is that all of the bedrooms are downstairs! We have a cool bonus room which can be a gameroom or media room upstairs. Otherwise, all bedrooms are down. After living in a 4-story house in Germany, I am ready to be on one level! 

The original family that had this house built put a lot of neat things in it.  Since they didn't follow through with it, the builder had dropped the price quite a bit.  I noticed in their model home that there was a 2K realtor bonus.  So our offer included that with additional things we would want, including a stainless steel refrigerator that matched the other appliances, gutters, a few custom plugs, and quiet automatic garage door opener.  There are granite counters in the large kitchen and master bath.  The house sits on an oversized lot and has a nice sized backyard and covered patio.  The house has 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, a study, dining room, and upstairs gameroom or media room.  The house is around 2700 sq. ft. and includes a sprinkler system and tankless water heater.  It exceeds energy efficiency standards and our utility bills should be real reasonable this summer.  The community has a new pond being built and a swimming pool and club house.  They are hoping the pool and splash pad will be completed this summer.  This is a brand new neighborhood so there are a few "risks" to our decision to buy here.  However, I think we're going to be okay.  The builder is debt free, has a great track record, has been in business over 25 years, and builds beautiful homes.  I'm looking forward to joining our neighborhood HOA board and helping to organize neighborhood functions.

We are hoping to close in about 2 weeks.  If we go with the builder's preferred lender, they will be done with our loan application/process in 10 days.  We have one walk through next week and the final one will be scheduled for the day we close.  We are so excited to finally find a house.  We have been living out of suitcases for about 2 months.

Here are some pictures of our new house!

Our lovely house!

Kitchen

Master Bath 1

Master Bath 2

Backyard

Living Room

Master Bedroom