We started looking at houses in the middle of June. Adam's mom and grandpa are real estate agents, and they helped us out so much. They worked so hard, and for so long. We are so grateful for the both of them. We started looking at houses in Santa Clara, but there wasn't very many houses that were in our price range that looked normal. We looked for houses in the middle of St. George, but they were mostly way too small. I'm not really sure why we decided to start looking in Hurricane/La Verkin, but we did. We found several houses that were reasonably priced and had enough room. The first house we actually got to go inside was in Hurricane. The people still lived there, and that's kinda really weird. There house was really cute, but it was like two houses attached to each other, and your front yard is a parking lot. The next one we looked at was kinda small, but it was a really good price. I kinda sorta liked it, except that it didn't have any closet space not in the bedrooms. We were going to put an offer on it the next day, but it was already sold by then. I was thanking my lucky stars for that. There was the exact same house around the corner for about $20,000 less, and it needed A LOT of work. This house was seriously scary, and I didn't want to live there. The weeds were taller than me, and there was cracks in the cement, and weird toys left in the rooms. The next few houses we looked at were both really big, but both in really bad shape. I was so surprised that people just leave stuff in their house, or just move out and leave the place a mess. These two houses looked like they've never been cleaned before. And there was SO many bugs in one of them, and I just can't do bugs. We decided that we would put an offer on the one that was less "buggy" the next day. After looking at the house I went over to see my mom since she was just up the street. We started looking on the house website, and my mom mentioned that her visiting teachers house was for sale. I thought, yeah, except it's like brand new and there is no way we could ever afford it. We were just playing around, and extended our limit to the highest amount we could afford, and the very first house that popped up was my mom's visiting teacher's house. I could not believe it. That night Adam and I went home, and sent the information for the house to his mom. She looked it up, and found out that it already had an offer on it, but hadn't been accepted. We needed to make a decision fast, and that was really scary. I felt like everything was moving so fast, and I felt so pressured. I knew that if we waited to long we would lose it. The next day we went to see the house, and I immediately fell in love. It was the one I wanted, and all the other ones we looked at that day were not going to cut it. We decided to go ahead and put an offer on it, and the next day we filled out the papers.
That was July 7, 2011. We decided to meet their asking price because we didn't know what the other peoples offer was, and that was the best way to make sure we got the house. We met with the mortgage lady to get approved for the loan, but it was a lot harder than we thought it would be. We needed to dig up several documents, and get them back to her as soon as possible.We also needed to order an appraisal. Adam and his mom were always on the phone together trying to figure out what we needed to get approved. We had to have several extensions from the bank that owned the house because our mortgage lady couldn't get it together. Getting the mortgage company to send my verification of employment to my boss was horrific. After everyone's hard work our mortgage lady told us that we could not get approved. I cried, and wanted to be done with the process because it was causing Adam and I to fight so much. We were both tired of spending $600 on an appraisal just to watch it go down the drain.
Adam and his mom decided that we should give it one more try with a different mortgage company. We already had the documents we needed in our folder, so we handed them over to her and she got to work. We could tell immediately that this was going to be much easier. When she put our information into the Rural Development website it said that we were the only Adam and Mckenna Herpel on file. Which means that the other mortgage lady never even put in our information. The next day we found out that because of Adam's car loan it was making it difficult for us to be approved. Adam's mom told us that if we could pay off that car loan we would most likely be accepted, so I took all the money I'd been saving up for Christmas and paid off his car loan. I was pretty devastated because I'd been saving for about 5 months. The $1,000 I was going to use for Christmas presents was gone, and I still had no idea if we were going to have a house at the end of all of this.
In November, we were told that we would need to have another appraisal. Even though it was for the same house, and absolutely nothing had changed. We had to pay another $450. At Christmas time, when we were supposed to be getting ready to pack up and go to Texas we were worried that we would have to stay here and sign documents, or hand in more paperwork. A a few days before we were supposed to leave we got the news that our 5th extension was going to go through and we were free to leave until January 1st. While we were in Texas we got a call from our mortgage lady and she said the bank that owned the house decided they wanted $4,000 more dollars. At this point, I broke down crying and decided that I didn't want to do this anymore. I couldn't throw away anymore money, and anymore time. I was emotionally drained. Adam and I walked over to my grandma's house and talked about what we should do. We decided to tell everyone that we were finished. We didn't have enough money to pay $4,000 more. They also needed $200 more dollars for the appraiser to go check up on something. When we got back from Texas Adam called his mom that night she told him that we've worked so hard for this and that we were so close. She told us to pray about our decision and let her know first thing in the morning. We prayed that night, and soon after we'd finished praying we both had a strong feeling that we shouldn't give up. We called Adam's mom back and told her that we wanted to keep trying.
The next week, we went over to the house to do the final walk through, and that meant that we were almost done. Luckily, the bank accepted our original offer. Adam and I were both kinda at peace at this moment. It was a strange comforting feeling that we didn't care whether or not we got it. Whatever happened was what was supposed to happen. Our heavenly father was watching out for us. A week later we went in the sign the papers for the house. The stack of papers that you have to sign is enormous. I was really sick of signing my name over and over again. We sent the papers to the bank, and a few days later we were told that we got the house. We were able to move in the very next week. I was at work when Adam told me that we got the house, and I was so excited. I'm pretty sure I screamed really loud. It took us about two weeks to clean up and get all moved in. It was so much fun to decide where everything was going to go, and start picturing how I wanted everything to be.
So this is where we live now. In our cute little circle, with all of our friendly neighbors. And my parents roof is the one you see in the right of this picture. We live so close to them, and it is the best thing ever!
This is our office, and the first room you see when you walk in the front door. I am in love with hard wood floors, and central vac. How did I live so long without central vac?
This is our living room. I can't wait to get rid of all of Adam's bachelor pad furniture. I've already picked out the entertainment center and couches that I want.
The kitchen is one of my favorite parts of the house. I have so much counter space, and my fridge is totally awesome! It was so worth spending the night outside of Lowe's for on Black Friday.
So Perfect!
After everything we've been through it was so very worth it. Everything still feels so new, and it's so exciting to have our very own house. I can't wait to landscape our yard, and play with our future kids on the grass. I can see our little family growing in this house. And it already feels like home. We've been so blessed, and we are so grateful that everything worked. We've been paying our tithing really good lately, and we are seeing so many blessing from that. I can't believe that I get to live here, and that Adam loves me so much that he worked so hard for me to live here. We are so blessed.
