Not sure Brian could ever top this one....

Buying a house has been anything but easy and anything but fun until now...our loan and how much we could quailify for kept changing from week to week so we put our house looking on hold until I got back from Las Vegas (steph and I did a trade show there--another post..). We got back late Thursday night--Friday night we met up with Brian's family in Ladera for dinner. Our agent called us & wanted to show us a house real quick before we left. It was a forclosure that just went on the market. It was a total fixer-uper & smaller than what we'd been looking at in the past. Brian proceeded to tell me that we no longer able to qualify for what thought we could. So I was trying to stay optimistic--it had potential. Our agent wanted to show us one more house--Brian said he wanted me to wear a blind fold so I wouldn't be distracted by the neighborhood and I would just see the house itself. I resisted and he insisted--so i conceeded. I was thinking it was in this area of Ladera that I didn't want to live in. We pulled up, Brian opened the door, helped me out of the car, handed me 2 dozen red rozes, and a key?! He took off my blindfold and my dreamhouse was in front of me with his whole family and our kids on the doorstep. Complete and utter shock. "Are you kidding me?" is all I could keep muttering between tears and a lot of kissing.

**side note** no way would Brian ever be allowed to do this but it was a house that we previously fell in love with and we didn't get--so he knew it was a sure bet!!

He knew that I had been having a hard time juggling all the change and uncertainty with the kids--so when the house we lost came back to us, he didn't want me to be disappointed yet again so he did it all on his own. I am shocked he was able to keep this from me. I'm notorious for having to know everything all the time and he's a terrible liar.

We ended up getting the house for $150K less than they were asking. I love a good bargin. All the drama and homelessness was worth it--we get to move in hopefully by Sat. the 27th. We're going to have a big Halloween party & everyone can visit our new pad. But don't expect any new furniture for awhile--we're poor... Here are a couple of pics--I'll post a couple of the big "surprise" as soon as we get them from Brian's dad. We will not, however, be posting the video that Brian's brother took of the whole thing--embarrassing.

It's around the corner from the other house that was on my blog forever & it has the exact same floorplan. We've got a guest room now so please please come stay with us!