Moving In

I promise house pictures will come. But right now the place is a huge mess, so pictures will have to wait. 

We started trying to figure out how to get our mail the Monday after closing. It's taken two weeks, but the whole thing is finally taken care of! There's still a sign covering the outgoing mail slot warning of a hornets nest, so we can't send mail out yet, but we can finally get our mail. The whole process was way more frustrating than it needed to be. I was ready to sign us up for a PO Box today if I still wasn't able to access our box.

The same day I was told there was a hornets nest in the mailbox, we got our washer and dryer delivered. That's when we found out that there was no breaker in the panel for the dryer. The dryer outlet wasn't connected to anything. I also discovered a sewage leak in the garage that afternoon. I wasn't expecting much, but decided to email the realtor and see if there was any recourse for this stuff from the seller or the home inspector. He was awesome and told us he'd reach out to them and would cover the cost of fixing both so we could get them done right away. Thankfully the electrical wasn't too bad. The wiring was there, just not connected to the box. And messed up on the outlet end (it would've blown the dryer if we'd been able to turn it on right away because there was no neutral or something). But no holes in walls were required. Took a little longer to get the sewer pipe problem fixed. It did get taken care of eventually though.

Our mason guy started working on tuckpointing the day after closing. We got a call late that morning telling us that he was shocked our chimney hadn't already fallen over. The chimney didn't need tuckpointing, it needed to be rebuilt from the roof up. We went over that afternoon to look at it. Sure enough, you could easily tell the bottom of the chimney and the top were not at all lined up. Thankfully our credit for the tuckpointing was enough to cover the additional cost of rebuilding the chimney.

We moved all our big stuff into the house this past weekend. It was soon discovered that our queen bed will not fit up the stairs to the master bedroom. So Ryan and I are sleeping in the basement bedroom until we figure out exactly what mattress we want (probably some kind of memory foam because it comes all rolled up - easily fit up our stairs!). Not an expected expense, but what would home ownership be without all sorts of unexpected costs?

Sunday we drove Gareth up to Camp Kirby for his first ever summer camp. We'll go pick him up Saturday. It felt a little odd to put Malcolm to sleep in his room (in his new bunkbed, which he loves) all by himself. We realized he would never get to sleep with the sun shining right on his face, so we came up with a great window covering:

At some point we'll get something better than cardboard boxes to use as window coverings. But we were lucky to have a curtain rod for the shower this morning. We'd purchased one, not realizing it was one that required hardware to hang. I ran to Home Depot just before they closed and grabbed a cheap one. 

I'm realizing that deciding decor for a house is really difficult. Soap dispensers, for instance. Ryan seems to want something nicer than the plastic softsoap bottles from the store. So we were looking at them and it was completely overwhelming. What will guests think about my taste if I choose dispenser A vs dispenser B? Do I even like any of these? There are just far too many choices. I'm not great at visualizing things, so that doesn't help. And the tile and other fixtures are all the same in the bathrooms here at the moment. But I'm not sure I want all the bathrooms to look exactly the same. I can't even figure out soap dispensers - the thought of window treatments just makes me wince. The good news is that we have lots of time to get things just how we want them.

Househunting, Part IV

After knowing that things weren't going to fall apart in the home inspection stage, we needed to finalize our lender. I did that the day I found out my grandmother was dying. We went back to the lenders we'd been considering to see who had the best offer for us this time around. In the end, we went with a different lender than we were planning on with the first house we offered on.

I had to head to my grandmother's funeral in the middle of all this, so waited on deciding the insurance until I got back. I was hoping to just stick with our current insurance provider, but we found a PNW company that could offer us a much, much lower rate than our current provider.

Then we had to get a few more things from Ryan's new job for our mortgage. But once that was done it was just waiting for the appraisal. And that's where things stalled a bit.The appraisal happened at the very end of June, but with the July 4th holiday we didn't get the report until the next week. The report was good, except that the lender wasn't happy with the comps the appraiser found. Because one of the above grade bedrooms in the house is non-conforming it was difficult to find houses in the neighborhood that had sold recently that were comparable. We ended up having to get a desk review, which takes three days.

In the current housing market you worry a bit about the seller getting annoyed at having to push the closing date back several times (we initially set it as 7/2, pushed back to 7/10 because we all took time with the inspection, then to 7/15 because the appraisal took longer than expected to come back, then to 7/24 because of the need for the desk review). But as our lender said, this was completely out of our control. We'd been credit approved and ready to close for some time. If the seller had wanted to avoid this delay, they should've added an egress window to the non-conforming bedroom (something we plan on doing as soon as possible, just to get some light and air circulation in that room, but also because dying in a fire doesn't sound appealing).

The west coast is a bit odd in that you sign all your papers before the closing. The only thing that happens on closing day is the escrow company disperses money and gets the deed and mortgage recorded with the county. And you get your keys once all of that is done. We were told to plan on signing papers on Thursday, the 23rd. Then we got a call Thursday morning from our lender letting us know the escrow company was having a major network outage and so we may not get to sign that day (which would potentially push closing back yet again). Thankfully things ended up coming back online and they were able to hurry and get the paperwork finished. They called me just before 2 pm to set up an appointment. Our paperwork was in Bellevue, but we were going to sign at their downtown office, meaning I needed time to get the kids to a friend's house and take the bus there. They wanted to know if we could make a 3pm appointment. So I had them send Ryan the instructions for the bank for our cost to close and he ran to the bank downtown while I rushed the kids to our friend and then rushed to the bus. I made it into the building right at 3. And then we waited for 30 minutes because they hadn't managed to get all the paperwork over from the Bellevue office yet.

Eventually it all came and we got to witness our signatures undergo evolution while signing a ream of papers. Then Ryan showed me his new office (great views of the Sound, Space Needle, and Pike's Place) before we headed home.

Things were supposed to be easy on closing day. Our wire was set up and we were waiting to hear from our lender that things were all set and from the realtor that he'd got the keys. Instead, I heard from the escrow company at 11 that our wire hadn't come through yet. I told them we'd set it up and they said it might come soon, they'd wait a bit longer. I got a message from Ryan just before 1 that they'd called him and I needed to call them. The wire still hadn't come, and we were now running out of time to close that day (because the lender couldn't wire their money until ours had come and wires can't go after stuff closes on the East coast at 2:00 or 2:30 pacific time, but it really needed to happen by 2 so that the escrow company could get the other stuff in for recording by 2:45). So I gave them my reference number and they told me that wasn't a correct number, that there should be a different one. I immediately called the bank, who insisted to the bitter end that that reference number was the only one there ever would be and that they'd sent the wire. I told escrow this and escrow said that wasn't true. I called back the bank and made clear that I wasn't happy they were messing with my home purchase at the end of business on a Friday. They agreed to call some people and look into it. In the end the wire made it, but not soon enough for the lender. Our lender was able to call his company CEO and get funds released another way so that we could close. It was hectic and stressful. And I guess it wouldn't have hurt to close Monday instead of Friday, but everyone else seemed so concerned about it all, I guess because they all like to actually close when they say they'll be able to.

So now we're homeowners. And that's rather terrifying. But exciting also.

Carkeek Park

We've been helping a friend out with childcare this summer, taking Gareth's best friend for a day here and there. The past couple times we've just hung around our place, letting them play Minecraft, ride bikes, water play in the back yard, and hanging out with other friends at play street (you can get a permit here to close your street one day per week so kids can play in the street; the friend's we go to closes their street from 2-5pm, but another family from Gareth's class last year closes their street from 9-5).

But this past week we made a trip to Carkeek Park. We went first thing in the morning, hoping crowds wouldn't be too large then. There was a Campfire Kids daycamp going on, but even with them the crowd was totally manageable. We hung out by the salmon slide for a while and then Gareth and his friend wanted to head to the beach. Usually when we're at Carkeek I say no to the beach (because I always forget there's a beach there and don't plan accordingly), but this week I just went with what they wanted. And we had a great time.

Of course, the view was beautiful as ever.

The big boys crossed the seaweed strewn rocks to get to the water and wade and play in the wet sand. They even found an intact shell with a creature still inside which they brought back to show us and then took back to the water.

Mal preferred to stay in the dry sand with me. We found a couple logs to sit on and played with rocks and shells, took pictures, and ate snacks. The train goes by between the beach and the park, and the boys all enjoyed watching it. Mal didn't like how loud it was when the train whistle blew, but once he covered his ears he was fine.

We've got about 15 pictures of close ups of Mal's face and him sticking his tongue out. He really likes to have control of the camera.

Gareth's friend cut his toe on a barnacle just before we left. The Campfire nurse was nice and gave us antiseptic and a bandaid to get us home. We got him bandaged up at home, ate lunch, and hung around the house for the next few hours doing the usual stuff (Nerf guns, Minecraft, playing with water outside) until it was time for him to go home. Aside from the cut toe, it was a fun day all around. And nice to have an excuse to just relax and have an outing in the midst of house stuff.

Ten Years

Ten years ago:

We've done quite a bit in 10 years. Graduated from college, done the grad school thing once, moved 3 times, had two kids, worked through post-partum depression, worked at multiple jobs, jettisoned a belief system, and bought a house (almost!). Ryan sat next to me a couple weeks ago and said, "I had been thinking we should do something big for our tenth..." I responded, "But we're buying a house." We have joked that the house is our birthdays and anniversary and Christmas for the rest of our lives - we never have to buy gifts for each other again! But we would like to take a nice trip or something at some point, so maybe for our 15th.

Instead of a big trip, we'll spend the day in a pretty typical way - at work, trying to clean the house, playdates with friends, and then we'll go out for a nice dinner this evening without the kids. Ten years ago we were young and we've both grown into quite different people than we were (or were looking for) back then. But our personalities still work together well and we still enjoy being together. We frequently marvel at how lucky we got.

Househunting, Part III

We found ourselves quite nervous about the inspection. In the days before it we'd chatted a lot about how well this house would work for us, and couldn't help but be a bit excited about the possibility. In the end, the inspection went pretty well.

There were the couple big things we expected and a couple big things we didn't know about. And the usual little things, about 30 items total on the inspection report. The deck got the okay from the inspector, and the water pressure was actually excellent, despite the line to the house being galvanized still and 80 years old (all the lines inside the house had been replaced).

We asked for the seller to do some of the big things and left some of the big stuff that can wait to ourselves (like replacing the galvanized water line and a retaining wall that's deteriorating). We got an estimate for the tuckpointing that came in way, way below what I'd anticipated. Good news there, leaving us hopeful the seller would agree to do it.

The next day we did our sewer scope. We brought the kids with us so they could see the house (and so we wouldn't be bugging friends for help with them two days in a row). Gareth loved everything about the house and while Mal was reticent at first, he definitely seemed to warm up to it after a bit. They had fun exploring and running around while Ryan checked to see if he could fit out of the window in the master bath (because we'd realized that bedroom and the basement room are non-conforming with no second legal egress and we really don't want to die in a fire) and I measured the downstairs bath space for a washer and dryer.

Ryan commented that the house suddenly seemed much smaller once the kids were there. We'll definitely have to invest in some area rugs to help dampen the noise of them running through the house. The sewer scope was a mix of news. A lot of the line had been replaced and all of that was looking good. Just a foot or two from the main the scope guy ran into a ball of roots (probably from the redwood tree in the back yard) that his camera couldn't get past. So that last little bit of line was an unknown. It could just be a matter of eliminating that ball and it'll be great (until the roots grow in again), or it could be that you eliminate that and see that the roots have decimated the line between there and the main. So we asked the seller to take care of checking the rest of the line in addition to the other items.

They took a few days to respond, but in the end essentially agreed to do everything we asked for. They gave us a credit for the tuckpointing and checked the rest of the sewer, which looked good. So now we needed to finalize our lender and insurance provider decisions.

Cougar Mountain

My friend's kids have watched our kids twice this past week so that we could go on bike rides. It's been good to get back on the bike after not many long rides recently. I did lots of little rides through the end of the school year just getting Gareth to and from school, but hadn't done many real rides.

Today we rode up Cougar Mountain. By the time you reach the top of the mountain you've climbed about 2500 ft. You're rewarded with a great view of Lake Sammamish. Today it was quite foggy, so not the clearest of views. But still lovely.

I've ridden across the I-90 bridge several times now. Figured it was high time I got a picture.

The bridge takes you across the lake to Mercer Island. Then on the other side of the island another I-90 bridge takes you across the lake again to the east side.

It's about 18 miles until you start climbing the mountain. Another 6 or so to the top. Then you get to have fun riding back down. We hit 50 mph on the way down. You add a few hundred more feet of climbing as you're going home, to get in about 3100 ft. total and 48 miles.

I believe this park is one I've been wanting to take the kids to for a hike. When thinking about that stuff it's easy to feel like it's all so far away (I have to drive to the east side, ugh!). But the fact that I've biked over there and back in just a few hours rather puts things in perspective. The only thing holding me back for now on that kind of activity is the fact that Mal is potty training and not at all interested in doing so outside of our own home.

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium

We have friends here who were going to be in Tacoma house/dog-sitting for her mom for a couple weeks. They invited us down to spend a day with them at the Point Defiance Zoo. We'd never been and had a Chinook Book coupon that would get Gareth in for free. I thought it'd be fun to all go, but the only way to do that would be to go on a weekend, and with this weekend being the holiday weekend knew that would likely mean big crowds. So opted to go mid-week with just me and the boys instead.

The zoo is part of a larger park that looks like it has a nice scenic drive and some beach areas. The zoo is a good size - not tiny, but not so big that you can't do everything in a day. We started at the aquarium. Malcolm loved trying to pet the sting rays and screamed at me when it was time to move on. Eventually he calmed down when he realized there were other cool things to see. Like spiky lobsters.

Then he screamed at me when it was time to move on from those. That's pretty much how the entire day went. Attempts at getting pictures in the dark aquarium weren't too successful, so I gave up after a while. I thought these starfish were rather cool.

After the aquarium we saw the elephants. The one we could see seemed to be trying to stick to the shade and wasn't doing much. Malcolm didn't like that I wouldn't let him go play with the elephant.
Then it was on to the tigers and leopards - they had some adorable cubs that were sleeping. And the monkeys. The monkeys were the first really active animal. Malcolm loved watching them swinging.

Then we ate a snack to distract Malcolm from trying to run back to the elephant. The older boys asked for a camel ride as we passed, but at $6/person we told them they had to choose between a camel ride and a carousel ride. And that we'd wait and choose at the end of our day.

On to the walruses, seals, and puffins. Malcolm adored the walruses. They kept swimming right up to the window so everyone could get a good view of them. After we moved on Malcolm kept insisting we go back to them again.

We caught a glimpse of the polar bear and saw an arctic fox as well. Then passed a couple muskoxen on our way to the play area to eat lunch.

Checking out the muskoxen

Apparently there are goats, wallabies, lemurs, and meerkats near the play area, but we skipped those. Ate lunch, let the kids play. Malcolm found some cool frogs. And all the kids cooled down in the small splash pad that turned on while we were there.

The older kids decided on the carousel over the camels (only $1.50, much better). Malcolm, our overly risk-averse child, screamed in terror when I asked if he wanted to ride on the carousel. So he and I watched the other kids ride. Then we got them ice cream. Malcolm was totally on board for that.

We headed back to the house where our friends are staying and hung out in the air conditioning and ate some dinner before heading back home. Definitely a fun first outing of the summer!