Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone had a good Christmas! Ours was busy, of course, but a lot of fun.

To update everyone on the home front- our offer was rejected. We did not realize the seller had to pay a real estate fee equal to our closing costs, so it makes sense that she could not afford to pay the closing costs as well. Unfortuantely, that is all we were approved for since we do not have enough cash for a 20% down payment and 6% closing costs. We looked for other homes in the area, but there just were none in our price range. Winter is a really difficult time to move and I guess that is why a lot of people do not bother to try to sell their home until spring.

That being said, our lease is up in a month so we have to move asap. Jon is on break from school for the rest of this week but he is trying to get caught up on his classwork. Our plan is to rent an apartment in Wexford, keep saving as much as we can and keep our eyes open for the right house. Hopefully, Jon will have a little more job stability and we can try again this summer.

I am bummed about it, but truthfully, we were trying to make this second choice work. It really felt like God was thwarting our every effort, so we are just trying to keep the faith that He has something better planned for us.

We felt a little silly because it turned out that we did not need to scrimp and save as much as we did the last two months, since we did not end up needing a down payment next month, but it all worked out because I had some very expensive car problems right before Christmas. In the end, we learned our lesson and decided that it just wasn't worth some of the sacrifices we were making.

We are really looking forward to a fresh start in a new home this year and can't wait to see what 2011 has in store!