The Story.

Ok.

Rewind.

Olive and I came to Houston over Fathers' Day weekend. Julie, Mom and I looked at way too many houses.

One stood out above the rest.

Kyle and I discussed. He looked at pictures and checked out the neighborhood on Google street view.

We made an offer.

Kyle flew down to Houston for the inspections. He loved the house too.

Our contract was finalized and a closing date of August 10 set.

We waited (and moved to Houston and celebrated birthdays and started new jobs).

While we were on vacation, during the first week of August, our mortgage broker called to say there was a problem with our financing due to a typo on his part but that we should be able to close on schedule - or possibly 5-7 days late.

(Cough. Cough. Cough.)

What really happened (minus a few of the more 'gory' details) is:

Our mortgage guy made a typo in one date field in our loan application. The other dates were correct, but under new rules, this one date was a deal-breaker for the first lender. No corrections, no lee-way, no oops.

So, on August 5, our loan application went to the back of the line with another bank. No special rush treatment, no 'we've-been-pre-authorized-since-June' or 'come-on-it-was-a-typo'cuts in line. We were behind mountains of other people waiting to refinance and get great new interest rates.

And so we waited. While 5-7 days became 30. While 30 became 45. And while 45 became 47.

I wish I could say we were patient.

We probably should have changed brokers or banks, but we were so far in with our guy ... it was hard to walk away.

On Friday, September 17, 2010, we closed. We signed MOUNTAINS of paper. We met one of the seller's 4 daughters and heard stories about the house and her parents. We walked out of the title company on Friday evening with the keys to a wonderful home in a cute neighborhood that needs some love but no major immediate projects.

We scheduled and rescheduled our move so many times. I almost didn't think it would happen. I certainly didn't think we would actually be able to move this weekend, but the movers were there at 830 on Saturday morning.

The chaos has begun.

We will post photos soon, but did you read the part about the chaos?

(By, the by, we have NOT figured out what doors all of the keys in the photo below open, but we can get in and out of the house. Yay!)