Mi casa es su casa

Guess What???? We closed on our house today!!! We officially own our first house. We paid 20k less than its worth and paid NOTHING (ok, $10.00) in closing costs besides our 3.5% down payment. We are both so happy about it! Now comes the fun part: choosing paint colors, decorating, buying furniture and appliances, etc. YAY! AND we still have money to save for rainy days (or preggo days) when money might be tight.

Letdown/Blessing

Yesterday morning, Sonny and I woke up with a feeling that we needed to go by our "new" house to check it out. There was a drainage issue with the basement when we had all that snow, and I was wondering if there was mold in the basement. So we drove down there. We walked into the house and heard dripping water: the breakfast nook had a waterfall coming down just to the right of the light fixture. I ran downstairs, praying that my suspicions were unfounded. Luckily I was wearing my galoshes. There was about an inch and a half of standing water in the basement. I wanted to cry. The small drainage issue that we thought could be corrected in a Saturday afternoon was clearly more severe than we anticipated. Mold had started to form on the studs and the insulation and stucco was wet by the side entrance. Unless they come down 40k on the house so that we can fix it, we are walking away.
I am so disappointed, since I was a few weeks away from painting, decorating and accessorizing my first home. However, we both agree that this was a blessing because we found out before it was too late. Everything has been stopped--the mortgage, the appraisal--everything. We are back to square one. However, hopefully now we can find the perfect little house.
We are just praying hard to find the right place now with the little scrap of time we have left.

EMORY CLASS OF 2013!!!

I THOUGHT I POSTED THIS BEFORE BUT I GUESS I DIDNT!!! SONNY IS GOING TO EMORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emory

Sonny had his interview at Emory and was also fortunate to meet with the head of the Multicultural Student Affairs office. His meeting with the director went well and he felt that he shone in his interviews. We have been praying hard that he is accepted to Emory because it is his dream school and it would be very convenient to live by Atlanta instead of Macon. Please pray with us!! The admissions committee meeting met today...I hope they felt inspired.

Sharyl is training for the Turtle Crawl Triathlon and trying to build up her running stamina.

Juno is as happy as a clam, growing tall and muscular. She loves chasing us around when we are on the bikes. She picks on Harley often and is getting better at learning new tricks. (She now knows "shake", "BANG!! You're dead!!" and she is learning to hold a treat on her nose until we say "OK" and then she can eat it. She is a master at sit, stay, and down).

Sonny got an interview at Emory for January!!! Woohoo!!!
Sharyl is thinking about taking some culinary classes at the local college to fine tune some skills and maybe open a catering company in a few years...what do you think?

Introducing the future Dr. Centrael Tyson Evans

Sonny received his acceptance to Mercer School of Medicine last Wednesday. We are so proud of him!! We are still waiting to hear from Morehouse and he got an interview invitation for Meharry. However, Mercer is ideal for us. Congratulations love!!

So close yet so extremely far away...

Sonny and I have been apart 10 days, 4 hours, and several minutes. It has been challenging and feels like much longer than the actual week and a half. Sonny had multiple exams, a mountain of homework and tons of papers to grade and feels the stress of it daily. I seem to be on the opposite spectrum--trying to find ways to fill my time with distraction so I dont ache for him. Juno keeps me company as best she can but seems to be severely attracted to Sidney (I think he reminds her of Sonny and she misses her daddy too) so we have to share her. Also since Juno broke her leg is unable to get outside for her usual exercise so she is misbehaving which makes our time together a little stressful for me. Work is interesting and keeps me running, which I appreciate. I find myself looking forward to Mondays with a strange joy. My in-laws are wonderful, as usual, and I try to speak with my family often. Sonny had his first two med school interviews at the beginning of this month (Morehouse and Mercer) and we are waiting for an acceptance. Hopefully he gets a call from MCG to broaden his options. I am looking forward to October 28th when I can be reunited with Sonny for a few days. Stay tuned...