We are on our way to buying our first house! We go to settlement on August 31, possibly earlier if everything goes smoothly.

I'll start the two day craziness from the beginning. My mom and I left Saturday morning around 9 with Sasha in tow. Sasha was visiting the week prior and we arranged to drop her off to her parents on our way out to Tennessee. We stopped and had lunch with her parents at the Cheesecake Factory and ate plenty for our ride ahead. It was really great seeing everyone and visiting for a while. We got back on the road around 2 and continued driving. Around 9, we stopped at a hotel just west of Knoxville. I walked into the hotel while a lady was arguing with the guy working at the front desk. They were discussing something to do with the rate for that night, but I wasn't really paying attention. When it was my turn to get the room, I politely asked about a military discount and he told me that he would give me the same rate as the lady before me because I had overheard the conversation. He told me the rate would be $75. I thanked him very much for this extra $10 off of what the military discount would have been. Then when we looked at the bill, my mom noticed that he only charged me $70. It just goes to show that killing people with kindness works best! =) Anyways.. this kinda gave me the idea that it was going to be a lucky trip.
The next morning (Sunday), we woke up way too early because we did not realize that we had not reached the time zone change. We got to Clarksville around 10 and were supposed to meet Cherie (our realtor) at 11. We decided to check into a hotel room and get situated and then took some things to the storage unit. It worked out perfectly and we arrived at the office a couple of minutes early. Once we arrived, Cherie handed me the list of houses that we were going to look at on Sunday. All of our favorites were in that pile so I was pretty pleased about that. We started with two houses on Athena Drive. These were the two houses that Paul and I were really impressed with but when I saw them, I realized that there was no way that the little bit of furniture that we had would fit in those houses. There were nice but super tiny!
The next houses we looked at were on Raintree Drive. There were 4 houses that were for sale because they were new construction. We stopped at the one Paul and I picked out and looked at it first (our home!). I walked in and fell in love. It was perfect but I knew I couldn't stop there. I needed to have other houses to compare it to. We went into all of the others and each one was a little different than the one before. The first was my favorite. After that we spent the rest of the day looking at ALL of the houses that we had picked out, plus others! We looked at over 20 houses on Sunday.
When we finished, Mom and I went back to the hotel and I uploaded the pictures of the favorites and sent them to Paul. It worked out well because Monday was his day off so he was able to look at the pictures and pick his favorite house while I was sleeping. He was ready to discuss everything when I woke up Monday morning. We discussed numbers and monthly payments and down payments and all of that stuff that makes my head hurt. We both decided that Raintree was the best house for us, but that I should go back and look at it just to make sure.
We went back to meet with Cherie and I told her that I wanted to look at Raintree and this other house. We went to Raintree first and when I walked in the door, I knew that I was home. It was one of those feelings and I knew that I didn't need to go back to the other house. I walked around and decided that we needed to go write the offer.
We wrote the offer and sent it to the seller and less than 2 hours later, Cherie called to let me know that the house was ours!!! I was soooo happy and I emailed Paul right away.
Everything worked out perfectly and Paul was able to be involved in everything. He called me multiple times on Sunday, and on Monday was able to be on speakerphone while we were writing the offer. When he went to work on Tuesday morning, he found out that he was moving and that he wouldn't have internet. So it really could not have worked out any better!
Our home has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. Its garage is HUGE! It is a new construction so we will be the first people to live there. We have a utility room and plenty of counter and cabinet space in the kitchen. Our master suite is amazing compared to others in the same price range. We are both super excited!! Here are some pictures....

Our backyard

The Kitchen

The Master Bath

Our whirlpool tub

The Master Bedroom