Our First Home!

We've been casually looking for a home off and on since we moved to Texas 2 1/2 years ago, and we've finally decided to take the leap. It's been an exciting (and scary) adventure so far! 

One Saturday back in August we decided to go to a grand opening for one of the new neighborhoods near our apartment. We were mostly just going for something to do, and we came home a little shocked that we had somewhat decided to build! We still had a lot of thinking to do, but if we wanted the last lot in our preferred neighborhood, we had to at least give them a deposit to hold the lot for us within 24 hours. 

After a pretty sleepless night, we went back first thing in the morning and gave them our deposit for the lot. We've been exploring a lot of neighborhoods throughout the couple of years that we've been here, and we really just love the Pulte neighborhood that's about 1 mile from our apartments. It's walking distance from the elementary school, and it has an awesome amenity center (it's the fun pool with the slide that I've posted about a few times). We also like that they tried to keep as many trees as they could when they built the houses. Another thing we like about this neighborhood are the big sidewalks which make it really nice for running and biking. 

Once we decided for sure that we were really going to build, everything happened so fast! It was a crazy few weeks with LOTS of paper signing and choices to be made. Scott is a very easy going person, and in the 5 years we've been married I've never seen him as stressed as he was during those few weeks of major house decisions. I knew he would make good decisions, and I was happy to go along with whatever he decided, but I also felt bad that 90% of the stress fell on his shoulders. Scott said it was the hardest decision he's ever had to make in his life, but we are all happy with the decisions that have been made so far!

Our lot is on the corner in a culdesac, and we got lucky that it came with a nice stone wall on two sides of it. They had to take out a few of the trees to make room for our driveway. It was sad to see the biggest tree go, but we're glad they were able to keep a couple of the trees.

It's nice living one mile away from where we are building because we get to see the progress several times a week.  We will have enough pictures of this house being built to make a flip book when it's done. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Scott really does make one.

Here's the progress so far:

It's almost ready for the brick! 

Also, we are trying to decide if we should keep that tree that's in front of our doorway. It's kind of in an awkward spot, and it's also an awkwardly shaped tree, but when you live in Texas, the more shade the better, so it will be a hard decision. 

It's cute that Boston actually knows what's going on. Every time we visit our house he says, "Our house is almost done!" He's very excited to have more places to hide when he plays hide and seek. :)

Our house is scheduled to be done December 26th. We are so excited!