We bought a house!

Two weekends ago Zeke and I took a trip to St Louis to go house hunting.  We weren't sure if we would buy a house on this trip but we were hoping to see as many houses in the area as possible.  My mom was able to come and stay with the boys while we were gone.  We arrived in St Louis on a Thursday around lunchtime, saw at least 14 houses that first afternoon.  On Friday morning, we visited the Spanish Immersion School (and decided we didn't want to send our kids there) and also went to the hospital where I'll deliver baby #4.  In the afternoon we saw lots of houses again and by Friday evening, Zeke and I were pretty fried!  We weren't sure what we should do at that point so we just hung out on Saturday morning and drove around testing commute times and looking more at neighborhoods.  There was one house by this point that we decided we really did like so we saw more houses and then went to our top choice last and being in the house that second time, both Zeke and I decided that that was the house that we wanted!  So we went to our realtor's office, filled out all the paperwork to put an offer on the house, waited 30 minutes to make sure that's what we wanted to do and then called our realtor to submit the offer.  Our plan was to give them until 10pm that night so in case they weren't interested at all, we'd still have Sunday to look some more before returning to Minneapolis on Monday.  Luckily we had some fun plans for the evening so we wouldn't have to wait around stressed out hoping to hear from our realtor.  We got to hang out with the Wessman's and the Creer's (who were in town from Chicago).  Zeke, Scott and Mark went to the Priesthood session and I stayed at home with Julie and Stacey and all their awesome kids.  Everything with the house happened that evening quite quickly.  I think by 7pm, the sellers had counter-offered, we proposed another counter-offer soon after and by 8:30 the sellers came back with their final counter-offer, we accepted and we're now homeowners!!!  Of course since then, there has been lots to do like figure out financing, insurance and all that but we're so excited about it all!  We close on June 2nd which is perfect for us.  It gives us time after Zeke graduates to finish cleaning, painting and packing up and I'll be between 34/35 weeks so I should have enough time to get somewhat moved in before this baby comes!  I still can't believe how well it all worked out.  I can't believe we bought a house in basically 2 1/2 days, but we had done a lot of research before going on the trip and our realtor was amazing.  And then we had Sunday to enjoy some General Conference and hang out in Forest Park.  On Monday morning I flew back by myself because my Mom needed to catch her return flight to Utah and Zeke stayed for the house inspection and came home Monday evening.  What a perfect way to spend my birthday weekend! :)

Our address as of June 2 will be: 270 Falaise Dr, Creve Coeur, MO 63141

 the front of the house

the back of the house

Link to all the pictures of the house:
https://picasaweb.google.com/lucas0616/House?authkey=Gv1sRgCPqmoZa4xoCD4wE&feat=directlink

Sunday evening (April 3rd) we took a walk in Forest Park; I'm about 25 weeks in this picture



Forest Park is bigger than Central Park - there are a couple museums and the St Louis Zoo - it is beautiful!

 this day it was about 85 degrees - so nice compared to the weather in Minneapolis

in the distance is the Art Museum

our house is maybe 5 minutes away from the St Louis Temple - Zeke took this picture on Monday after the inspection