House update

Just a quick update and some info on the short sale house that we are buying. Here is a link to the listing for those of you that are interested. Our amazing realtor Leanna Bradshaw has been great throughout the whole process. She's been in this hunt with us now for almost 2 years and has stuck through 5 short sales, shown us countless houses, in the morning, noon and night. She has pestered sellers with all manner of questions for us and always has stood by us. She has learned to know exactly what we're looking for and doesn't show us houses we wouldn't want. She is now working out of Orange County, CA. If you're in need of a realtor, give her a call.

In case you thought we were dead.

Well, we're not. We've been busy with the house hunt, life in general and when we weren't doing that, we were procrastinating. Notice I said "PRO" crastinating. Just means I'm really, really good at it. Just a little update: On the house front, we've made several offers on houses since our last house post. The one we were waiting for, with the urine stained carpet, went on so long that we started looking again. Surprisingly we found a whole bunch of houses that were in better shape and for the same or only a bit more money. We actually went into escrow on one that was pretty good, but I decided it didn't have quite enough space for what we'd be paying monthly. After a whole lot of searching, we finally found a short sale that was in a better situation than the stinky one. This home is immaculate and it's clear that these people took great care of this house. Since this house is not yet in arrears, the negotiations are going much smoother than a typical short sale. It is a 5 bed, 2 3/4 bath with 3 car garage, pretty good size backyard and a huge long driveway. There is also nobody behind us and no development likely for awhile. It is also on the outside of a bend in the road, almost like a cul-de-sac, and the wedge shape of the property means that our neighbors to each side are a bit further distance than most, and are at an angle so that our windows are not looking directly across at theirs. Long story short, we truly think this is THE ONE, so we've pulled all other offers and have stopped looking. Our agent says things are going smoothly.
In other news, the show we filmed for the BBC was supposed to have aired on the 5th and we are awaiting our DVD copies from our producer. She said the BBC would send them as soon as the show aired in the UK, so we're anxious to see it. It's called Inside Human Bodies just in case you happen to be somewhere you can watch BBC one.
That's it for now. Christi and I will try and get back to this thing, but only time will tell. My new job doesn't have loads of down time like my old one did, so no blogging from work.

Not much anyway.

Bumps in the road

We posted before about the house on which we made an offer, waiting for the approval of the short sale by the bank. It appears now that we have crossed the final hurdle of approval and now are merely waiting for the bank to open escrow. When we last posted about the house, we were going to see it with Christi's dad and some of the older kids. The house we saw that day, was not the same as the one we had seen and placed our offer. Since that time, the owners had moved and left their mother in charge of the house. She apparently had 3 little shaky dogs that had been having some accidents on the carpet. Sadly, at least 2 of the rooms in the house now had distinct dog urine odors. We left that day after having our agent contact the seller's agent and extracting a commitment to double clean the carpets upon completion of their move. Fast forward to last week and the owners had gone, and the carpet had been double cleaned. Sadly, the urine smell remains. It appears as though it has completely soaked through the carpet and padding and into the wood of the upstairs floor. The downstairs floor is concrete, but the carpet and padding will have to go. It is my hope that only the two main rooms of concern will need the carpet ripped out, but that remains to be seen. Christi was extremely disappointed because she had wanted to have a home that she could be proud to invite folks into and now it appears as though we may have bare floors for awhile because we won't be able to immediately afford to replace that much carpet. And when we do, it will be the good stuff with extra thick padding. This is going to be our home for a long time (God willing) and we want it to be right. We feel certain that we lost that previous house because it wasn't the right one for us. This one has all we wanted and more. We won't be letting our hard work go for nothing over the removal of some carpet, that's for sure. Christi, in particular has worked her little tushy off calling, calculating, and negotiating to make this work. I did my part, working every scrap of overtime I could get, but it was really her that made it all possible. I thank God for my wonderful wife and kids and now for this opportunity to put my family in a home they deserve. I'll be praying for a quick opening of escrow so we can get started on this new path before us.

Waiting for our castle

Not too long ago, we made the announcement that our backup offer on a house had been moved up to the primary offer and we were in the waiting game for bank approval. Well, some paperwork has been shuffled and the previous owners are moving out and we are a bit closer to actually getting this thing done. We are going to see it with Christi's dad today so he can have a look at it (postponed from a couple weeks ago) plus the older kids. A few of you have asked, so I'll provide this link to the listing, for your viewing pleasure. As before, I'll ask any of you that pray to keep us in your prayers to get this house. I think it is the one we were meant for.

From the back of the line, to the front, and no cuts, no butts, no coconuts.

At a time like this, the reptilian part of my brain tells me to refrain from talking about things like this, in order to avoid the wrath of the Real Estate Gods. But I seldom listen to my own superstitious thoughts and so I'll tell you that Christi and I are now the primary offer on what is probably the best house we've seen yet. As noted here, we lost out on a short sale on which we had been waiting almost 6 months for a final answer. It was rather heartbreaking as we weren't even informed that our offer had been dropped and so we were on the hook for probably 2 months unnecessarily. As I said in that post, we had since put in offers, 2 of which we were in backup offer status. Well, it happened. The primary offer on a 5 bedroom 3 bath house, with 3000 plus square feet fell through and our offer was submitted to the bank. Unfortunately, the previous buyer lost his job, and our sympathies are with him for that, but I think that this is our time. As Christi kept saying after we became the backups "the backup offer on the previous house got it" so she and I kept some very high hopes. It looks like things just might work out this time. This house is the best we've seen yet as it keeps us in the schools we wanted, has nearly double the footage of where we are now, 5 bedrooms and a 3 car garage. The backyard is completely walled in with concrete block walls and the landscaping shields the backyard from nosy neighbors. Most importantly, it has that one feature that Christi has been dying for for so long, a fireplace. In fact it has 2, the most awesome one being in the master bedroom right in front of the garden tub (read: Luuuv tub). The kitchen is large with great cabinets and stainless stove and dishwasher (another important feature). We are taking her dad to see it on Thursday, to get his opinion, but I'm sure he'll be just as pleased with it as we are. My hopes are hanging on this one, but we feel really good about this house. If you pray at all, please pray that things work out for us with this house.

It will feel so good to finally have a place of our own.

Just a little update

Christi has been posting on her facebook about various events that have occurred in our lives recently, so I'm going to try and update on these things and fill in some details about what has been going on with us lately.

Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea: The Cason News Update!

For those of you wishing Dalton well, he has an appointment on the 20th to have some upper GI and lower GI scans and an ultrasound to have a thorough look at his innards and see what this mass is all about. The Doc at Loma Linda said that whatever it was, it would most likely involve some sort of surgical intervention, we just need to find out more and see what is what. We hope that those of you that pray will do so for a simple diagnosis and easy treatment. He says it's not hurting much anymore, but we want to get this thing out and finished so he can get busy with college and work and whatnot.

On the home buying front: Some of you know that we were in a contract for a house that was a short sale and were waiting to hear if we had bank approval on the first mortgage (we were told that the second mortgage holder had approved us). Apparently, without contacting us, the listing agent heard from the bank that they wanted an offer of at least $6500 more than we had offered and they chose to go with a backup offer without contacting us and giving us the chance to counter. We had been waiting just shy of 6 (six) months thinking we had it in the bag, when I just happened to drive by the house and saw that the swimming pool was full of clean water (it had been near empty with some stagnant rain water at the bottom when we saw it). Curious, and knowing that our agent had been unable to reach the listing agent for some time, I thought I would just call the main office and inquire about it as though I were just looking. I called and asked and was told that the house was set to close escrow the very next day, but they had many more lovely houses in the area to show me....

W.T...um...Heck????

I was obviously quite upset by this, and made my displeasure known to the agent who had answered the phone. She didn't have any answers and was, honestly, pretty dismissive of my outrage. After several messages left for the listing agents and having our agent make some inquiries, we figure that one of the listing agents probably screwed his fellow listing agent by dumping us and taking the bigger offer without notice and may have taken the lion's share of the profits too. While I know we could probably have raised a legal stink about this, it would have cost us money we can't afford to lose and so we took it as a sign from God that the house was not the right one for us. We have since made a couple offers, on which we stand as backups and are continuing to look.

We will find a house.

We have also been contacted by a young lady from the BBC and it appears they would like to interview us for a documentary on the human body. We will be featured in an episode on reproduction, (naturally!) and we're told that it will air on TLC in the U.S. in 2011. They originally intended to film the birth of #16 but the hospital balked for safety reasons (read: liability) and so it will just be the interview. That's going to happen on the 29th, we'll let you know how that turns out.

Speaking of #16, Christi is scheduled to be induced on the 1st, because the Doc likes to keep as much control due to the high risk associated with numerous pregnancy moms. Of course, that is assuming that the baby will let us get that far in the first place. Christi has been having some interesting contractions lately and the thought is creeping in that we may be in for an early arrival. Kids never pay attention to schedules, do they? This one we'll definitely keep you up to date on. Certainly on facebook, maybe on twitter if the laptop we bought arrives in time. That's another small piece of news, we bought our first computer in 8 years and we're excited about not having to wait 20 minutes for the computer to boot and then logon and access the web. We have been using Chad's laptop, but he needs it for school now, so it's gone most of the time. Got a really sweet deal on ShopNBC.com too.

Along with the contractions, Christi has been having a really hard time with migraines. She has had to deal with them on several pregnancies, but this one has been the worst. Her Doc has given her some stuff for pain, but it is of limited help and nothing works completely for her. It will ease off and get better, but she has headaches that last for days. At the moment, she is headache free, and I hope she can stay that way for awhile. She's been to the hospital several times for these migraines and while they eventually get rid of it, they pump her full of meds and she feels hungover all the next day. Pray for her to have some relief until the birth.

Also, as you may have seen on my facebook, I was in Washington D.C. recently for some work training at our company HQ. I got to walk around and see some great sights, but it really made me miss Christi and the kids not having them to share it. I got a few good pictures, but the camera gave me some trouble when I tried to photograph the White House and some other neat sights. I am already hatching a plan to get the family there for a vacation as soon as I can swing it. I'd like to make a loop through Philadelphia, D.C. and some Virginia Civil War sights. Maybe in the Spring so it's not so hot and humid as it is now. I'll try and get a few of the D.C. pics and a post on my blog when I can.

That's about it for the update, but with us, there will always be something coming up.

Stay tuned.

What we’ve been up to

In the past few weeks Christi and I have kind of been absorbed by our house hunting efforts. We saw a number of houses here in the local area and even put offers in on several. We had high hopes for one that was only a block away from where we live now, but had a complete ½ acre that was already landscaped, a fireplace in the master bedroom that Christi fell in love with and some great spaces that would lend themselves to renovation for extra bedrooms. Unfortunately that one was scooped up by an investor with cash in hand. We were initially following the strategy of bidding high and asking for closing costs but it seemed to get us nowhere. Then a funny thing happened. A house in short-sale that Christi and I had seen online before our pre-approval came through, came back onto the market after the escrow on it had gone south. The asking price on this one was $175,000. Our initial move was to again bid high, we offered $206,000 hoping to completely shut down the competition. They actually counter-offered with $200,000 but asked for an extra $3900 cash before closing to satisfy a second mortgage. I’m not exactly sure what happened to us then, but somehow even though the actual price came down, the sudden addition of the cash for the second rubbed us the wrong way, plus Christi’s dad took a look at the place and suggested that maybe the price was a bit steep, so we didn’t sign the counter offer and let it slide. We went on to look at a few more places, and even submitted another offer on one that we weren’t completely thrilled about. As we were in the office working up the paperwork, our agent was scrolling through the listings and came across the short sale we had offered on before. Apparently, the other buyers who had been countered at the same time we were hadn’t returned the counter offer either so it was once again available with no pending offers. It was then that Christi and I decided to pounce. We countered with our own offer at asking price, $175,000 and asked for some closing, while agreeing to the $3900 cash for the second. Surprisingly, this was accepted by the owner. Last week the bank holding the second accepted their portion of the offer and now we are just waiting for the main bank’s response. We’re told it will come no later than the 19th so we’re almost there. Our agent feels pretty certain it will be accepted because the bank initially accepted an offer for the same amount. I’m hoping it comes in sooner rather than later. I’m itching to get into escrow and get both the home and septic tank inspections completed. This house is such a great fit for us. It’s a 4 bedroom, 2-1/2 bath on a 1/3 acre lot. It has a nicely upgraded kitchen, new carpet and tile, upgraded bathrooms that all match and each of the bedrooms are really pretty large. Plus it has a “family room” area that will be perfect for adding in a 5th bedroom. It has a huge laundry room area and a nice 2 car garage. Best of all, it’s in a nicer area with low tax rates and not on a racetrack like our current place is. We’re looking forward to moving as a chance to clear out our clutter and start fresh in a new place. This is gonna be sooooo good for us and the kids. We’ll update as this process moves along.

House hunting............

We finally are able to buy a bigger house, we will be sad to leave this 4 bedroom 1 bath home, but boy is it time! We have put our first offer in on a house, it is bigger than this house(sq ft wise) and has 2 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms right now, but we met with a general contractor to get his bid for making a large 5th bedroom and have some other things done too, the loan is an FHA 203K, we are hoping to hear by Tuesday if the bank is taking our offer. This has been a long journey and if it is not this house, we will have one in the next 3 months, woohooo!!

Thanks to everyone who said we should do a blog, it is kind of fun, and like many said, it's a fun way to update on our family, although we have not done any updating yet, ;) lol.

It is our beautiful DD's birthday, Kaylee is 11 today, so off to to eat cake with her!!
Happy birthday to my Kaylee, my little cookie!! I love you and am so proud of you!

Christi

Happy Thanksgiving one and all!!

Ok, Ok...we've been bad, bad bloggers, I know. You can't see it now, but Christi is slapping herself on the wrist. Actually she's sleeping, but you get my point. We've been remiss in our blogging duties and this is our mea culpa. It seems that our daily running around and our current battle with the stomach flu has crimped our blogging. That and we keep procrastinating on offloading the pics we've been taking for the blog and then tellling ourselves, "We'll do it later and then write that post we've been meaning to". Then later comes and goes and no post and...well that's how it goes.

But, here is an update, without the pictures and we'll get to those when we get one of these:

I had a friend in the service who carried one of these in his pocket and he'd bring it out whenever I'd make an excuse for something. Always good for a laugh.

As some of you may know, we've been doing the paperwork shuffle trying to get pre-approved for a home loan and after many, many phone calls and delivery of a thick stack of paper that spells out our entire value to the material world, we have finally gotten the go-ahead. We can now begin searching for a house in earnest. We actually had found one and looked at it informally the day it hit the market, and it was nearly perfect for us, but within 12 hours it had multiple offers stacking up. That is going to be one of the main problems we face in this search as the market pricing is so attractive and the supply of houses is short. That coupled with the ridiculous "special assessments" on homes in many of the areas we want to live (you'd be amazed) which drive the tax payments on these things sky-high. That is going to put a pinch on how much home we can buy or where we can buy. We'll keep you posted on how this goes.

Last Saturday the our band geeks marched in the Lake Elsinore "Unity in the Community" parade. We have pictures for that too, but the picture above applies to them also. It was fun to see them do their thing and they looked so good in their uniforms. Really cool.

This year we had planned to have Thanksgiving at our house, with a few friends and family, but those plans were interuppted by a wicked bout of the stomach flu. Christi and all of the little ones, from Austin down have been suffering the effects and as of this posting, we've still got little ones doing the "technicolor yawn" and Christi herself is still feeling quite ill. We're going to have to scale back dinner to whatever everyone is feeling up to eating.

So that's what we're up to. We plan to get to those pics this weekend, but that remains to be seen. We hope that everyone out there has a great Thanksgiving and enjoys the family and friends and the good times and whatever makes you thankful. Despite our bout with the flu, we're going to rejoice in the love of our kids and the time we spend together and we'll get through the yuckies as a family. We'll be keeping more up to date with the blog as we do have those pics and we'll have house hunting updates and if we're lucky...maybe we'll even have another special announcement.

God bless you and all that you hold dear.