Sunday, January 9, 2011

Home sweet home!

After 4 months of credit checks, a novel's worth of letters explaining our "nomadic" life situation, and Willie having to explain why his company, Great Lake Trailbuilders, is not listed in the outdated Yellow Pages, we finally closed our our house!!!!!


What an adventure!!!!

We met with the title company on Thursday, and after about an hour of signing a four inch stack of papers, the house was ours!!!  Ribbons, balloons and fanfare.....wait that part didn't happen, but it felt like it!

And then to make us feel right at home as new owners, Willie and his dad stepped into the house on Friday to a nice, cold............

Yup, that is right, our 26 year old Carrier 58CC furnace decided to poop out on us the first morning of house ownership!  Though we already planned to replace the heater, it would have been nice to make it through the first weekend without having to call a repair person.  Luckily for us, Willie found a great company, Schneider Heating and Air Conditioning,  that came to our rescue and got the furnace up and running before the impending -15 degree night which would have most definitely busted our pipes.  Another company, to be left unnamed, (rhymes with Mears), stopped by to give a quote, and only after an hour of ridiculously slow internet did he give a ball busting price quote and snub our lack of hospitality (sorry we don't we have cups we literally just moved in and our heat doesn't work).  Luckily for him Schneider left us with two space heaters to help us raise our inside temperature to a balmy 35 degrees when they came to look at our furnace and give us an estimate on a new one. The "Mears" salesman packed up his bags quickly when I put down the quote on the same furnace that was $1500 cheaper than his quote.

Nonetheless, the furnace is now up and running, and we just had a fabulous weekend with Katie's parents down visiting for the weekend, and a team effort by both sets of parents to conquer the first steps of fixing up the house.  Goodbye linoleum and shag carpet!!!!!

Thank you Robin, Randy, Bill and Carol for all of your fabulous help this weekend!

This is just the beginning of a whole new adventure for the two of us!

Enjoy!
Willie and Katie



Sunday, January 2, 2011

Yes!

Happy New Years everyone!!!!!!!!


Where to begin.....


Well, we are still in the process of buying our place....wait!  You probably want to hear about the exciting news on New Years Eve!  We will update you on the house later!


On the count down to the New Year, as everyone chanted 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3..........2............1...............
HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Willie got down on one knee and asked me to marry him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


With a lot of excitement, a long pause, and Willie re-asking the question, I finally came out of my shock, surprise and excitement to tell him YES!!!!!!!!!!!!  He caught me totally by surprise, as he always does, a master surpriser!


I think everyone would have expected a hike, but Willie knew just how to throw everyone off for a wonderful proposal.  He not only surprised me, but he also found a beautiful ring with history behind it.  The stone is the national stone of Argentina, the Rodocrosita, which is my favorite stone.  We discovered it for the first time during our adventure living and volunteering in Argentina.  The ring is over 100 years old, and is made of white gold with leaves on either side of the stone with diamonds inside.


We wanted to share our excitement and love with all of you as we jump into, not only the process of buying a house, but now the excitement of planning a wedding!


As for the news on the house......hopefully.....hopefully we will close this week......


Happy New Years!  And we will be posting more regularly since Willie is now back, yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Katie and Willie