This and That

Eva the Princess Bride

The kids with Claudia after a face painting session

I think I might be getting better. I had a great nap yesterday afternoon and slept hard last night. Until 7:30am! With a couple of short interruptions, but that's late! I'm feeling a little more perky and I'm glad for that.

Micah managed to crack the tank on our bathroom toilet. I'm not happy about having to replace it. He lifted the lid on it and then let it drop. Took a big chunk out of the lip and made a crack down the back all the way to the bottom. I do have to admit I am somewhat impressed with the amount of destruction he accomplished.

Eva is a colouring maniac! She has been getting me to print off colouring sheets one after the other after the other. She didn't want to go to bed last night because she wanted "just one more". Sometimes she asks me to cut out the characters. We have a lot of cut out coloured characters and animals. Anyone have an idea for what to do with them or how to store them?

Andrew was in Saltillo yesterday and he saw three more houses. I am encouraged. None of them were absolutely perfect, but they all had many of the characteristics we want, and they were all at our price point. Unfortunately I have no photos. He took a camera but the batteries were dead. We also heard back from the beautiful house and they came down a bit from their 'lowest price'. It's still way too high for us but gives us hope as they don't seem to have any other prospects and they have moved quite a bit from the original price.

Househunting Fun (note the new photos for those of you who read this already)

I was deluding myself a little about the fun-ness of house hunting. Friday was absolutely exhausting and a little discouraging. That said, I'm still feeling generally optimistic, even though we haven't made a deal. I'm mostly discouraged because it didn't really feel like the real estate agents were working for us. We were clear about our budget but they still kept on showing us houses well above it. Which of course were amazing, but beyond reach. The strategy seems to be to show us junky houses well below budget, then head straight into the mansions. I refuse to believe there's nothing nice right at our price point.


Micah made a friend at one of our visits: here they are holding hands. He cried for "baby" for a long time after we left.

Things are somewhat complicated by the fact that Freightliner just moved something like 25 families into Saltillo, so the market is way up right now. Could be that if we just sit tight, prices will come down. We're lucky that we don't have a set moving date, and we can come back to look again if we have to.

Stepping in the front door... ahhh
This one felt SO amazing. The finishing was so nice. The patio and back yard were delightful. The kitchen was wonderful. The location is very quiet and green and close to everything. We'd take it in a second if they'd accept our price.

The living room and dining room

The back yard
This one was a lot of fun to visit. Felt kind of like a retreat centre. Lots of character. HUGE. Great loft space that would be perfect for visitors. But it needed a lot of work and the location felt a little out of the way. Could be that they would come down to our price but it didn't feel so right for us that we wanted to open negotiations.

Unassuming from the outside.... The covered part of the parking areaA view of the side patioThe living/dining room areaThe master suiteThe master bedroom closet. The walk-in closets in the other two bedrooms are not exactly tiny either.
This house is MASSIVE. Had pretty much everything we could want and more, including not one but TWO pantries, a library, a lot of yard and patio space, some hardwood floors, etc etc etc. No tub though which would be nice. It is totally walled in and we'd have lots of space to play inside and out, but I wonder just how isolated I'd be and feel? The area doesn't lend itself to walking. I don't know that they would come down to our price anyway. Even at the price it's at, it's an incredible value. Unless we got it for a steal at our exact price I think we'd feel kind of embarrassed to live in such a huge house.


The kitchen

The view from the breakfast bar in the kitchen
Oo, double sinks. The longer I'm married the more I understand their appeal.
Balcony off the master bedroom Terrific back yard and covered patio

A tub!!!

This one would be really great for us. And we know it because it was previously occupied by a Palliser family who really enjoyed it. We have two concerns. One is that the landlord put the rent way up and beyond our reach. Of course the house has been empty for 6 months so maybe he'll be amenable to negotiations back down to our price now. The other concern is about security. Right now Saltillo is still very quiet and safe, and hopefully it will stay that way. However the crime rate in Torreon and indeed all of Mexico has been rising recently. Andrew may be travelling more and we want to feel comfortable and confident in our security, so many of the houses we've looked at are in gated communities. The little area this house is in has a guard shack but no guard. And I don't think there are any other expats living nearby. Andrew and I would feel the most comfortable knowing I was in a gated community and ideally had friends just around the corner to call upon when he's not around. I suppose an option to consider is hiring a night watchman whenever Andrew is out of town.

We're thinking we'll put offers in for our price on the beautiful house, the massive house, and the great house. Then we'll leave it to God. If one of these houses is 'ours', the offer will be accepted. If not, we'll have to come back for another househunting excursion. It's all good.