Our house (loooooong)

Last week Stephen, Lincoln and I flew to Minneapolis to go house hunting. First, I have to say that the Minnesota/Wisconsin area is GORGEOUS! There is no need to tell me they have killer winters. Everyone who I have ever mentioned Minnesota to tells me of those. Anyhow, we flew in Wednesday night, looked at 20 houses on Thursday, 8 on Friday and made an offer on Saturday! It was accepted--no counter-offer or anything!

Alrighty, there are the boring details. Actually, I think the rest of this post might be boring, too, so skip down to pictures if you don't want my ramblings...

My (awesome) cousin Darci and her husband, Chris (who is also awesome), picked us up at the airport and we drove back to their home in Wisconsin. I should mention that Chris & Darci moved yesterday. They were a little busy and still catered to everything we needed! My Auntie Margaret (who will always be my Auntie) was there, too, so we all had a great time visiting!

Thursday morning we took Darci's car and drove in to Minneapolis where we met our realtor, Dana, (note: shameless endorsement ahead) whom we met through LDSAgents.com. He's been sending me house listings for the last couple of months (I've looked at over 700) that met my exact specifications of price, location, # of beds & baths, etc., etc.

Stephen and I narrowed our list down to 20 favorites for us to look at on Thursday. It was an exhausting day. Fortunately, about 10 of the homes were in neighborhoods that I didn't even want to stop in, so we didn't have to look in them. :o) That night we had Dana send us some listings of other houses in specific areas--that did NOT include North Minneapolis. Friday we looked at the 2 favorites from the previous day as well as 6 new ones, and narrowed the list down to our top two. One was an older style (meaning not a modern remodel) on over 1/2 an acre in a tucked-away neighborhood, the other a nicely done modern remodel with a good-sized yard in a more suburban neighborhood.

[Have you ever been writing a long, boring blog entry and looked down to see your 5-month-old son rolling over, and where he had just been, pieces of a wasp all broken up on his blanket? Gaaaaaaaaaaaa]

Our number one choice was the house on 1/2 an acre, which turned out to be a good thing because we found out late Friday night that choice #2 had just accepted an offer. Saturday morning we went back to our favorite house and I took WAY too many pictures (see below). We then went to Dana's house and wrote up an offer, after which Stephen, Dana, Dana's wife Amy, and myself went out for lunch, where we talked for a long time. I should mention that Dana is just a couple of years older than Stephen, and is the Elders Quorum president in the ward where our new house is. :o) So we got a  house and made friends this trip!

Front view from road--see that double-stuffed garage? It's HUGE! 

View towards the house from about 40' from the back property line.

The garden is in the fenced-in area on the right

Our deck, and some of the perennial flower beds

(Seriously, are you still reading this?)

After lunch Stephen, Lincoln and I headed to St. Paul to try to discover the location of a really cool cathedral we had seen from the freeway. It's the St. Paul Cathedral, and is quite beautiful. The weather was beautiful the entire time we were in Minneapolis--sunny and around 85. Everything was gorgeous! We also walked around the capital building and visited a Vietnam Memorial. On our way to Lake Calhoun to have a picnic with some Phd students, we got a call from Dana saying the people had accepted our offer! WOOHOO!!!!!

There were tons of people at the lake. It was fun to see the different sail boats/canoes/kayaks out on the lake, and see all the people walking and biking. They have separate biking and walking paths, and something like 50 miles of biking paths connected around the lakes in the area. Very cool. I'm going to have to pull out my bike and ride! I met two of the PhD students at UMN that Stephen had met previously. They are both LDS and married with kids, so it was fun to meet some of them. It's going to be a great 5 years.

Then off to sign papers for our house! Hooray! Back to Darci's for one more night, then on the plane and back home. Very fast, very successful trip.

I have to mention Lincoln. He is an angel baby. We toted him around everywhere with us, and he rarely complained. He is so content. The only times he fusses are when he needs to eat, has a messy diaper or is tired. And guess what? I can fix all of those things! While we were away he didn't get any good naps--we were always toting him in and out of the car, so he would only sleep in 10-minute chunks. And he was still so good. It was fun to go back to Darci's at the end of the day and have him doted on by aunts and cousins--Darci has two girls ages 5 & 8, and they adored him. It's going to be a lot of fun living so near to them!