Closed

April 26th was the big closing day for our new house! Excitement!! Loran and I dropped the girls off in the morning, arrived at Sweetwater for our final walk-through with our builder, Chris. We walked through our house and it was spotless and all of the blue tape marking off things that needed to be addressed/touched-up was gone. After our final walk-through, we headed across town to the mortgage company. We settled in with some coffees and snacks, where I went immediately for my weakness, Cheetos, then mid-bag, realized that coating my fingers in orange dust was probably a bad idea right before I had to sign my name hundreds of times. I wondered aloud if I could just sign with an orange thumbprint. Apparently, not.

The closing began, despite the fact that our second mortgage hadn’t showed up yet. *gulp* Sign, sign, sign…sign a few dozen more times, first mortgage done! We even had to sign a letter certifying that our marital status hadn’t changed. This was serious stuff. While this was not our first mortgage, we’ve had several houses and have refinanced each at least once…this was probably the most intense closing as far as paperwork. Apparently, since the whole housing/mortgage collapse, banks are more cautious. Not like in ‘05 when we bought a house with our driver’s licenses and the promise that we’d have jobs and a couple of signatures. No more! I was surprised we didn’t have to have blood drawn. We were waiting on our second mortgage to come through, watching the clock. We’d arranged for Lily to stay after school with the big kids (aka: Kindergarteners), but eventually we’d actually have to show up to pick her up, and then get Ella by 2:45. It was nearing noon. Once the paperwork finally came through, we signed everything, then had to submit it, get it verified. Tick, tick, tick. Finally, since we’d finished signing, and it was now 1:45, I had to go. I abandoned Loran at the office and took off in the car to pick Lily up, a half hour away.

Lily was relieved to see me. Apparently, an afternoon with the big kids was a little exhausting. She kept telling me that I’d forgotten her. We then swung north towards Ella’s school. I’d emailed her teacher to say, our closing had run long and I was coming, and may be a few minutes late. Once I had both girls, I then had to swing back down to the offices to get Loran. Apparently, the closing had officially ended a few minutes after I’d left so he wandered to a nearby furniture store and then to a bar to hit up happy hour for some lunch. I hadn’t had lunch, so I was sneaking fruit snack packets from my purse and the rest of my Cheetos – all while the girls demanded I share. I kept trying to explain to them that I was really hungry and I hadn’t had lunch. They weren’t buying it. So my lunch consisted of four fruit snacks and half a snack bag of Cheetos. It was like college. We found Daddy, and then I pleaded that we had to stop for some food. Nothing says celebratory closing lunch like Torchy’s Tacos! I got the “trailer park – extra trashy”.

We finally made it to our house around 5:30. Holly had gone ahead and attached a bunch of balloons to the girl’s door. Oh the excitement! We brought our first bag of belongings: cleaning supplies, toilet paper and a welcome mat. We were ready to roll! Or at least go back to the apartment and pass out.

Our original plan had been to bring the girls to a friend’s house on Saturday so they could play and we could move things from our apartment. In classic Gutt Girl form, Lily had a fever. Of course. So, to spare our friend’s four children our random sickness, we cancelled their play date. We dragged our girls back and forth. Lily was actually in a pretty good mood. Her fever lasted a day and turned into a cold. No biggie, thankfully.

We decided that Saturday night would be our first night at the house. We had no furniture, blow up mattress for us, the girls’ mattresses on the floor for them, no fridge, but we were excited to be in our house! Four months in the apartment, the girls were constantly hushed, made to walk through the rooms, asked not to jump around, shriek and scream out of delight. I always told them as soon as we get to the new house, they can run and jump and make lots of noise. Apparently, they really took this to heart because as we were driving to the house on Saturday, I hear Ella ask from the backseat, “Can we jump and scream now?” “Yes…” And with that, I could basically hear/feel their smiles form in the backseat. The excitement was electric, so electric I had to ask them to stop squealing until we actually got to the house. Releasing them from the backseat was like letting a wild animal back into their natural habitat. They both ran screaming into the house, ran around like crazy and then started jumping on their mattresses in their room. We didn’t see them for awhile.

Over the next week, we moved our belongings from the apartment and storage unit. Then on Friday, our movers showed up to get our furniture and finish off the storage unit.

We worked on organizing. Put new furniture together. Ate outside (partially because we had no furniture inside). Got our utilities hooked up and fridge delivered – it was basically a week of waiting out 2/3 hour windows of time while waiting for others to arrive to do things in and around our house. We were also getting used to the new timing of getting Ella to school. The first week, we were late twice, but now we’ve got our groove figured out, along with the most efficient route.

We’ve enjoyed the perks of our view, from sunsets to storm watching. and some fabulous rainbows. After dark, the woods lights up with fireflies and we listen to the chorus of frogs by the creek. The frogs are so loud I can hear them from inside the closed-up house. I can’t even hear a lot of the construction going on right next door during the day. These are some serious frogs. However, since the frogs have emerged, there has been a dramatic decrease in fireflies.

Our movers were awesome. We went with a company called Square Cow Moovers. Get it? Moovers…Moo…cows…Lily loved it. When I picked her up from school and brought her home, she was very interested in watching the guys. I finally put her up on the counter with a bag of chips so she wouldn’t get smashed. People hoisting couches over their heads aren’t always on the lookout for three feet of sass.

So begins unpacking. Since we used professional movers to box up our belongings, they were very thorough. So far, I’ve only encountered one broken item, which was probably not in the best shape going in. However, to be thorough, means they used a lot of packing paper. A. Lot. And, they wrapped things in paper that aren’t at all breakable. Like really, my individual food storage containers did not need to be individually wrapped in paper. They really could have been all tossed in a giant box, no paper. I was so relieved to see the five foot tower of flattened boxes and packing paper picked up by the recyclers yesterday. I’ve been doing a lot of organization, like color-coordinating our giant closet! Priorities. I also put the garage as a high priority, I like to get both cars in, and as of yesterday, they both are in and our garage is organized!

Fun fact, most of last week, Loran was in Japan. As usual, I do some sort of major home thing when he’s travelling more than a few days. While he was gone, I painted a bit. I did the insets in the entryway, the wall of the kitchen island and an accent wall in the living room. I still want to paint the powder room red and possibly above the kitchen cabinets. It adds so much, it really helps our house feel like home and it is nice to break up the beige walls – or Summertime, whatever. A little Cherry Cola really peps things up. The girls’ room is Princess Pink and Raindrop.

Yesterday, I hung the hardware to mount our television to the wall. It took a lot of measuring and thought to get it not only on studs, but also lined up with the outlet and area to run the cables. It’s been hard psychologically to drill into these pristine walls. This was pretty major too, I had to drill into the studs and then use a socket wrench to screw lag bolts into the wall. Despite knowing the serious hardware that is holding the television to the wall, Loran and I hefted it up and hung it, and I still expected it to come crashing down in the middle of the night. But, it’s still up! I’m sure it would pull the entire wall down before those lag bolts would give way. Now, to get all of those cords into the wall and hidden – today’s big project. I also have to remove all of the boxes from the guest room because Chelsey’s stuff arrives tomorrow on a moving truck. Just when I get both cars in the garage…slowly but surely, we’re getting there. At least it feels slow to me to not be completely unpacked already. I’m itching to decorate.