Georgia update

Since we have moved to Georgia Avery has been on a roll with crazy, funny sayings. We have forgotten most of them but we thought it was worth writing down a few.

While on a walk in an exasperated voice out of nowhere he says "mom, I really need a house!"
When driving by McDonald's Avery says "Mom, is there a farm in there?" (I guess he was remembering the song Old McDonald)
"I have my ninjas, now we can go to Georgia." (We have miniature ninjas that we put in our geocaches. He must have taken a few of them while we were packing up the house because I later found a few in the front pocket of our suitcase)
"I can't get in the tub, there are too many ninjas in there."
"I'm a piece of dirt." He wanted Brandee to pretend to push him around (she was the dozer)
"I'm too shy to say hi to her." (He was referring to the receptionist at the front desk of our hotel)

Things are going well in Georgia. We really enjoy it here so far and that says a lot considering we've been in a hotel for over a week and still have a few more days in one. The town is beautiful and we've enjoyed all of the golf cart paths. The people here are really friendly- Brandee has already met a few moms at local parks who have given her their numbers. She was even invited to Bunco by a woman in our hotel who just happens to live in our neighborhood but is staying here while her house is under construction. We both like the climate so far even though it is a bit sticky at times. Avery has enjoyed the newness of things and keeps asking to go "suplore" which is explore. Alia has been great as well. She especially loves watching Avery and belly laughing at him when he does silly things.

We had to post a classic picture that represents the number of golf carts in this town from the local Walmart. They actually have an entire parking lot for golf carts only.




Us having fun in the pool.

On our way....

We've begun the journey to GA. We have completed 2/3 of the trip and are scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon. The kids have been excellent in the car traveling so far. We were able to stop and visit Laura on the way which was a nice treat, especially since she made us brownies. We appreciated those several hours into the trip when we were in the middle of nowhere and starving! Our diets have been less than desirable. Avery's going to start thinking it's normal to have ice cream and brownies for dinner! Here are random pictures....

Homeless with sweet shoes

We packed our suitcase for Georgia and later learned that we couldn't close on time so we decided to stay in WI. Our packed clothes were for 2 days of traveling only and for temps in the 80's. Also, due to the delays in our housing I will have to start work prior to moving in. Since we can't get our stuff until we find a place to put it, I didn't want to show up at work wearing shorts and flip flops so I visited the local Goodwill and got some dress clothes (I am particularly fond of my new plastic dress loafers)



For those of you that haven't been updated on our recent housing troubles here is a history of what has happened.

1. In preparation for possible house buying I decide to call a bank to get pre approved for a loan on March 1^st
2. NWA told me to use Wells Fargo since we get special rates and our closing costs will be covered
3. Find out they won’t cover my closing costs
4. Start looking at homes on the internet
5. Fly to Atlanta to look at homes
6. Looked at 25 homes over two days (rained the whole time)
7. Couldn’t fly home since the flights were full so we rented a car and drove 19 hrs through the night
8. Made our first offer
9. Spent 4 days negotiating ultimately ending at a stalemate
10. Made our 2^nd offer
11. Spent 2 days negotiating and then got outbid
12. Made our 3^rd offer, got outbid
13. Made our 4^th offer, got outbid
14. Made our 5^th, 6^th and 7^th offer all at the same time
15. On our 5^th offer, got no response (it was way overpriced and we lowballed them)
16. On our 6^th offer, which was actually on the first house again, got outbid
17. Our 7^th offer was accepted
18. Realized 3 days later that we both didn’t like the house or the location so we terminated the contract
19. Flew back down to look at some more homes
20. Looked at several more homes and made offers on two
21. One was on a basement and one was on a slab - we continued negotiating on the basement one.
22. Came to an agreement to purchase the house – YES!
23. Called my mortgage broker to finalize the deal and get the following message “I will be out of the office on a special project for the next 4 months with no email or cell phone service.”
24. Found a new mortgage broker not with Wells Fargo
25. Got the inspection
26. Inspection items were fixed
27. Closing set for May 5^th
28. Movers take our stuff to Georgia
29. Ordered appraisal and 2 days later it came back $40,000 under purchase price
30. Sellers said the appraisal wasn’t accurate and they wouldn’t sell for that price
31. Order a second appraisal this time with Wells Fargo
32. Moved into Brandee’s Parents house and all four of us packed into one room
33. Took a week to get appraiser to come out but only waited 20 min to get into the house. Left and drove 3 hrs home.
34. Appraiser came back (driving 3 hrs again) and finished appraisal.
35. 4 days later he finished the report and was $50k higher than first appraisal
36. Appraiser doubled the size of the basement and doubled the adjustment on the basement (no wonder it was high).
37. Many days passed fighting to get the errors corrected. Appraiser refused.
38. After many more days the appraiser was fired for preparing a fraudulent appraisal and we would have to file an appeal with Wells Fargo’s appraisal management company (estimated to take at least a month)
39. Contacted the sellers and had the purchase price lowered $20k
40. Rather than getting a third appraisal we decided to try to use the fraudulent appraisal to get our loan

At this point we felt like we were done (or at least very close) all we had left was underwriting and we sigh a little as we are almost done.

41. Underwriting gave us a 1-3 weeks estimate for closing (good to know we can plan)
42. Found out the bank changed the rules and our broker no longer can do our loan, we would have to go through a bank’s broker
43. Bank’s broker told us we would need another appraisal
44. Since our appraisal contingency was done we couldn’t use the bank
45. Decided to switch our loan to a FHA loan and start over and hopefully use the fraudulent appraisal

That was yesterday, we will keep you posted

Enjoying the Mississippi

For Mother's Day this year we enjoyed a Mother's Day Buffet on a cruise boat.

Alia and Banana 3 months

Alia continues to attack the banana. At two months she mearly fell into it. Now she is throwing herself at it. Oh and she rolled over for the first time yesterday (back to front)


Alia


Alia happy to have taken banana out.


And of course to compare, Avery at 3 months


Avery