Saturday, May 31, 2008

Seriously - We're Going to Live HERE!

A view of our first day on Corpus Christi beach!

Pictures of Our House!

From the front driveway...his and hers garage doors! The two windows above the left side garage are in the master bedroom, the circle one above the right side garage is in the master closet.
The upper window on the left side is in the bonus room (office), and the lower window is in the kitchen.



Another outside view...
so you can see the trees!













Master bedroom















Below is the master closet...Stacey's side on the left, Dan's side on the right! :-)









Master bathroom - his/hers sinks on the right (closet is to the right as well), tub to the left...












More master bath...shower sits to the left of the tub. We'll be getting rid of the pretty wallpaper border... :-)
















Laundry room! It's huge and has tons of storage/hanging space! I'm so excited to not have to stand in the hall to do laundry!










Bonus room...
this picture isn't doing it justice!
We'll use it as an office now, and eventually it will be a playroom for the kiddos! (nope, not pregnant...
just in case you were wondering!)

Friday, May 30, 2008

Official Listing of Our New Home!!

The official listing online can be found by following these steps, if you are interested:
  1. Go to www.vickycorreasellshomes.com
  2. Click on PROPERTY SEARCH
  3. Click on RESIDENTIAL PROPERTIES
  4. In the MLS NUMBER box, type - 74384

And viola! There is the listing for the house we put an offer on! Don't mind the cheesy popcorn bowls...those will be going! :-)

I'll post some actual pictures that we took tomorrow!

Commute to Kingsville Challenge!

Today we dubbed the "Commute to Kingsville Challenge!" day. Knowing that commute was one thing that could make or break one of our favorite houses, we decided to drive it out and see how each looked. We are essentially looking in two areas of Corpus Christi - one is called Calallen, and the other, South Corpus. They are pretty similar in terms of school districts, and neighborhoods.

So we drove from the Calallen house to Kingsville first...33 minutes (on a jaded sample because our new GPS - whom we have lovingly named M.J. - took us through a town instead of hiways).

In Kingsville - I took Dan around campus to show him where I'll be working. But not before having to pull over to let M.J. tell us where to go, after which I proceeded to lodge our car onto a curb! Dan was pleased! :-) All is well - no harm, no foul! We had lunch at a yummy Mexican restaurant (there are lots of those down here!) - then headed to campus. I was excited to see my name on the door which will be my office - and I have a mailbox already! I think that's part of the torture of graduate school...if they make you feel like a slave who deserves nothing - when you get your first job, you celebrate things like your name on a door! Dan got to meet some of the people I'll be working with - and they gave us some good advice on the 2 areas that we were looking at houses.

Picture of the building I will mostly be working in...



On our trip back - we drove to the second house in South Corpus, where we met our realtor to look at the house again (Dan's favorite). As we walked through it again - I fell in love with it. I'm sure it was 90% God changing my heart, and 10% me mixing it up with one of the other 17 houses we looked at the day before! So we put in an offer on it - and are currently negotiating the contract with the seller, and working out our financing. Prayers are definately appreciated as we wander through this abyss known as buying/selling a house!

After the 3 most stressful hours of my life - pulling together the contract - we had dinner at a fabulous seafood restaurant on the waterfront. Another place we'll be sure to take you when you come visit!!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

1 Day, 4 Hours of Sleep, and 18 Houses Later...

We finally made it to Corpus Christi this morning!!! We should have been here yesterday evening, but weather in Dallas caused us to spend 8 hours in Denver before making a flight to Dallas. We had the most comfortable bed ever (highly recommend the Sleep Number) - but only got to spend about 4 hours in it because we had to be at the airport by 6am.

So we arrived in Corpus Christi (after another delay!) around 9:30 this morning and promptly met with our realtor down here. She is a HUGE blessing from God - very efficient, organized, and a Christian herself. It was just a little hug from Him that He would orchestrate that she be our realtor!

Here are some highlights of the day:
  • I nearly knocked myself out with a shelf that was sticking out of a wall...where, because I hit my head on it, I knocked off some figurines and proceeded to break the head off a doll and a Panama something-or-other. As we toured that house, I saw about 3 million similar figurines so I didn't feel as bad - and the nice man who owned the house didn't seem to mind.
  • Dan and I were both highly disappointed in our top choices (as we looked through the listings online before arriving). Mine was a trash-hole - and the people who lived there were still home when we arrived...so as we walked upstairs to look at the bedrooms - Dan walked in on some guy lounging on his bed. Fabulous. Needless to say, we didn't get the full tour of that house, we were happy to leave as we saw 30 years worth of cobwebs hanging from the ceilings! Dan's favorite was a little better - but a classic example of an agent taking some really good pictures of a not so really good house.
  • We saw pink countertops, pink tile in the bathroom, carpet that I swear was from my Mom and Dad's living room - 2 carpets ago...and smelled some things I hope to never smell again!

All in all though - we did have about 10 homes that were "livable" (ironically, neither of our internet favorites made that cut!) - and both of our top 2 were the same homes. Unfortunately, my favorite wasn't Dan's favorite - rats! So we spent the evening praying about it, and decided to see what the commute from each house was to Kingsville (where I will work).

Had dinner at Joe Cotten's - a legendary BBQ joint just outside of Corpus Christi...you can bet that we'll be taking you there if you come to visit - very yummy!!